Malawi crash out of Cosafa U20
It was another astonishing and painful afternoon of drama for Malawi’s soccer fratenity as the junior Flames gave away a 2 – 0 lead to go down 4 – 2 at the hands of Angola in their semifinal clash of the 2011 Metropolitan Cosafa youth championship at Molepolole stadium in Botswana.
Malawi played well in the first half and created some good scoring opportunities but took the lead through Dalitso Sailesi’s 42nd minute strike.
Things changed in the second half as Angola woke up quickly from their slumber and reduced the junior Flames to amateurs led by man of the match Domingos Mateus who tormented them at will.
They made light work of the Flames but against the run of play, Maxwell Mwanyongo increased Malawi’s tally with a headed in goal.
When everyone thought Malawi will increase the pressure on their opponents, Angola had other ideas and continued to make Malawi’s stay on the field a misery. They pulled one back through Almeida Valdemar. Their attacks on the left through Mateus were out of this world and he scored minutes later with a spectacular effort.
Coach John Kaputa made several changes, bringing in Brown Mizeyi, Yamikani Chester and Martin Masoatheka but they failed to make the much needed difference.
Mateus added another before Nicolu Adriano sealed Angola’s victory with the 4th goal.
It ended Malawi 2 Angola 4 and coach Kaputa says his boys lost concentration after scoring the second goal and failed to man mark Angola’s playmaker Mateus.
“Tough luck to the guys, they gave it their best shot but failed to maintain the lead due to inexperience,we will now focus on the third place play off on Saturday,” he said.
Earlier on Wednesday,the boys threatened to boycott this semifinal fixture due to unpaid allowances.
The players were given allowances up to the group stages and since they qualified to the last four, they were demanding their dues. They got only $240 loaded in their money passports and FAM promised to load the remaining $240 and the qualifying allowances later depending on the availability of forex.
The players only agreed to play after getting assurances from Football Association of Malawi (FAM) accountant Christopher Mndolo and the technical team that their dues are with Fam’s banker National bank and that once forex is available,they will be sorted out. The players are demanding $800 for the 20 days in Botswana.
The Junior Flames have joined at the departure gates their seniors who were went packing in the CECAFA tournament in the quarter-finals on Tuesday.
