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Flames plunge 12 places on rankings

 

The Malawi national football team, Flames, wrapped up yet another embarrassing year by dropping 12 places on Fifa ranking for December.

The Flames mediocre performance in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers summed up the team’s woes as Malawi plunged from position 97 to 109 on the last ranking of the year.

Malawi played a total of 11 matches that qualified to be used in rankings.

The Flames have finished the year outside top 100
The Flames have finished the year outside top 100

Out the 11 matches, they won three, lost four and drew four as well.

Football analyst Charles Nyirenda said the Flames poor ranking is a testimony that all is not well.

“It’s because we are not dealing with the fundamentals. It is all based on trial and error in a desperate bid to manufacture success but the efforts have amounted to zero since the approach is dead wrong.

“Building a strong team takes time and no matter what we do, that is what it’ll require to push upwards significantly,” the former Football Association of Malawi (FAM) general secretary said.

Malawi started 2015 at a promising position 88 in January and that has turned out to be the best for the year.

In February the Flames dropped to position 93 but the team showed some signs of improvement by moving to position 91 in March.

However, the Flames dropped to position 97 in April and remained static in May.

June brought some hope as the Flames moved to position 95.

But the following month of July, the Flames poor form saw the team drop 13 places to position 108.

Malawi would return in the top 100 in August at position 98 and more hope was revived in September as the Flames moved up to position 96.

But in October, Malawi was out of the top 100 again as they were ranked 101.

South Africa are still the best team in the Confederation of Southern Africa Football Association (Cosafa) region followed by Zambia’s Chipolopolo and Botswana.

Angola is fourth bet while Malawi is fifth and Zimbabwe is sixth.

Belgium, who finished as the best team in the world on the last ranking of the year, claim the Fifa team of the year award.

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