By Joseph Dumbula
The Malawi national football team are in Saudi Arabia where they have kick started preparations for the Africa cup of nations to take lace in Cameroon from next month.
This will be Malawi’s showing at the continental showpiece in over ten years.
At the moment, the Football Association of Malawi has accorded Romanian Mario Marinica powers to lead the technical panel, although controversially, Meke Mwase appears to on the organogram as coach.
Earlier last week, the Flames Technical Panel has named a 30-man provisional squad which includes six new players who were not of the AFCON qualification campaign and the just ended 2022 FIFA World cup qualifiers while the rest are those that have featured.
The new players include Silver Strikers goalkeeper Charles Thom, Nyasa Big Bullets defender Sankhani Mkandawire, Civo Service United defender Lawrence Chaziya, Silver Strikers defender Mark Fodya and midfielder Zebron Kalima as well as US-based forward Henri Kumwenda
Marinica insists that the panel has come up with the squad after assessing the players’ performance in the World Cup qualifiers as well as the just ended local Airtel Top 8 cup.
While in Saudi Arabia, the Flames are expected play two friendly matches against Mali and Comoros on December 30th and January 4th respectively. The team will also have training matches with local clubs in Saudi Arabia.
Malawi are group B alongside Guinea, Zimbabwe and Senegal.
