FROM UNDERDOGS TO GROUP A LEADERS

In the recent Africa Cup of Nations, many people were taking Malawi as a potential place where every team could go and get three free points. But with the way things happened on Monday against Desert Foxes of Algeria, we saw Malawi who were called minnows being leaders of the Group A with a clean sheet of 3 goals to nil against world cup bond.

I know that Malawi’s last weekend’s pretentious and extremely unexpected display against the Desert Foxes; the whole world was shocked to see the flames kicking a ball in a simple and confidence manner.

But what many people doesn’t know that respect in football is needed, you can not just judge a book by its cover and names does not play but your fighting spirit and prayers sends you to success.

I fallen in laughter when I heard that Algeria coach was saying hot weather was their reason to defeat. So I asked myself that between Malawi and Algeria who could be complaining about the weather? We all know that Algerians come from desert where it is always hot and Malawi does not hot compared to Algeria.

Malawi being without many European-based players does not mean that they cannot cause surprises-they beat Egypt, DRC and Guinea in Malawi before holding Ivory Coast at Kamuzu stadium.

In their preparation campaign, they finished with unbeaten record in all friendly matches where they thrashed Mozambique at their home yard and drew with Egypt and Ghana.

What people should know is that the world has changed in terms of everything including football. Who thought Mali could come back and score four goals in just 11 minutes?

In additional, people were also surprised with what happened in Luanda where Flames were denied by Angola officials to train at 11 November Stadium. This type of tendency is not good, as we would expect every team to receive equal opportunity regardless where they are coming from.

Another thing people must know is that, this year’s tournament is different with the previous ones when people were wining games using statistics and history. These year’s teams are playing with confidence without looking whom they are playing with.

Today’s game is important to all teams, as that will determine who will proceed into the quarterfinals.  I know Angola have advantage as they will have over 40,000 supporters to push them through but if Malawi plays the way they played against Algeria, another unimaginable catastrophe will happen.

They are topping the Group A with three points and three goals that if they maintain their fighting spirit, Angola will be burnt into ashes at their own home yard.