FAM executive to review RVG performance

Football Association of Malawi (FAM) president Walter Nyamilandu has said the association’s executive committee will soon meet to review Flames coach Ronny van Geneugden’s (RVG) performance.

Nyamilandu was responding to a question on whether the association feels RVG is on the right track following the Cosafa Cup exit.

The FAM president has also been underfire from the soccer fraternity which feels his ‘Harvest Time’ promise, has been a big flop.

“We will have an executive committee meeting soon, so I can only comment thereafter.

“However, it is disappointing that we have bowed out in this fashion. The tournament has just exposed the lack of depth in the squad, especially upfront,” he said.

Before last evening’s match against Angola’s Negras Palancas, the Belgian had managed 14 games, winning two, drawing eight and losing four.

They have also not scored more than one goal in a single game. The last time they did that was in 2016 under Ernest Mtawali when they beat Angola 3-0 at the Cosafa Cup.

Said Nyamilandu: “We are lacking fire-power and the killer instinct to score goals and finish off opponents [and] there is need to find a solution to this problem that has dogged us for a long time.

“We played good football that was pleasing to the eye, but it is worthless without goals.”

And put to him that the association  has to take the blame for the team’s continued poor results as a football authority, the FAM president could not be drawn to comment.

He, however, said it was not all doom and gloom as some debutantes such as left back Precious Sambani stood up to be counted.

“If only we had a top striker who can bang 30 goals in a season, it would have been a different story and that’s the challenge I will be posing to the technical panel. They have to unearth playmakers and find a winning formula for the team,” said Nyamilandu.

Seasoned coach Yasin ‘Titch’ Osman said his personal assessment is that the coach has made “little progress”.

He said: “It will be unfair to say he hasn’t done anything, but my honest assessment is that he is stuck in the middle—he isn’t going forward neither is he heading backwards and that can be seen in the results and if it were a local coach, he would have been gone by now.

“The coach created expectations by giving the fans hope when he expressed optimism that the team world do well at this tournament and the fans do not care about how the team is playing, all they are interested in is for the team to win. Having said that, you cannot heap all the blame on the coach alone. Players also need to take responsibility, unfortunately in this game, fingers point at the coach.”

Osman also said RVG is depending much on young players.

“There are quite a number of  young quality players, but we need to blend them with experience,” he said.

FAM vice-president James Mwenda, who heads the technical subcommittee said:  “You cannot just heap the blame on the coach. Players must also take responsibility. I think the coach has done a lot in ensuring the team’s playing style improves.

“You can actually see that Malawi has improved a lot. That’s why Malawi is perhaps the only team so far that is playing entertaining football [at Cosafa Cup]. But the players missed a lot of scoring opportunities. You cannot blame the coach for that,” he said.

On his part, RVG told The Nation on Friday that he feels he has made tremendous progress and is on he right track in rebuilding the team and results will come later.

“I think when you talk about rebuilding process, you are talking of progress and results. I think this tournament has shown that we are on the right track, but that we have a lot of work to do on finishing,” he said.