Khuda’s last laugh
Love him or loathe him, Khuda Muyaba has become the first player to score over 20 goals in the TNM Super League in 14 years despite being sidelined at national team level.
The last player to score as much goals was Be Forward Wanderers’ Aggrey Kanyenda who netted 26 in 2005 when he won the Super League golden boot for the first time.
Muyaba has not surpassed Kanyenda and all-time record holder former Nyasa Big Bullets striker GanizaniMalunga who netted 28 goals.
But that did not stop him from wrapping up the season in style with a hat trick against SavendaChitipa United on Monday—his third in the 2019 TNM Super League season—to take his tally to 21.
It was the Central Bankers’ last league match of the season
He made 24 appearances in the yet-to-end season, missing four games which he boycotted and one when he was suspended.
Muyaba capped it all with a record eighth man-of-the-match accolade in the match against SavendaChitipa United.
Apart from the top-flight league accolades, Muyaba also won the Airtel Top 8 golden boot with two goals in two games as he helped Silver clinch the cup.
Though the battle for the golden boot is not yet over, his closest rival Bullets’ Hassan Kajoke is at a distant 16 goals.
Muyaba summed up the season as the best in his career.
“Mpirawayendabwinokwabasichaka chino [This year has been a very good season], This is what I have achieved,” said Muyaba while showing off the trophies he has hauled in the season.
However, despite such a record, the striker is still underrated at national team level.
Muyaba was last featured in Malawi’s African Nations Championship (Chan) back-to-back qualifiers against e-Swatini in June alongside strikers ChiukepoMsowoya and GastinSimkonda.
But the trio was sidelined from the 2019 Cosafa Senior Challenge Cup after they all failed to score in the Chan match.
Coach MeckMwase invited Muyaba in his provisional squad against South Sudan and Uganda in African Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifiers, but he never made the final squad, as the tactician preferred Kajoke, South Africa-based Baroka FC striker Richard Mbulu and Orlando Pirates’ GabadinhoMhango.
Flames team manager James Sangala yesterday said there is still room for Khuda in the national team.
“Khuda is a good striker. The coach hinted that the door is not closed on him together with the other players. But when you put him on the scale against the other strikers that were preferred ahead of him, he was weighing less on most of the attributes. The arguments that Khuda should have been included in the team are only based on the fact that he is the current top goal scorer.
“To the contrary, about 90 percent of those arguers never watched the training sessions leading to the two games. The coach, together with his backroom staff, selected players on merit. The coach has tried as much as possible to maintain consistency in the team which the general public had been crying for previously,” he said.
But soccer analyst George Chiusiwa felt Khuda still deserved a place in the squad.
“We are not saying that he has to be in the first eleven. But ignoring him completely in the final squad in favour of other strikers that can hardly score in the same league while he is banging in goals at will in the local league, is questionable,” he said.
