All set for Cosafa Cup draw

Malawi national football team, the Flames, will today be among 14 teams that will go into the pot for the 2018 Council for Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) Senior Challenge Cup draw.

The draw will take place at South Africa Football Association (Safa) offices while the tournament will be held in Limpopo Province from May 27 to June 9.

All members of Cosafa confirmed their participation according to Cosafa deputy chief executive officer Suzgo Nyirenda, who is responsible for competitions.

“We are set for the draw. All 14 countries in Cosafa region have confirmed that they will take part including Comoros who have not participated for the past 10 years. In this case, we will not have any guest countries. But DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo] and Ethiopia were on standby,” he said.

Nyirenda, who is former Football Association of Malawi (FAM) general secretary, said defending champions Zimbabwe head the seedings list, along with Zambia, Lesotho, South Africa, Namibia and Swaziland.

He said: “Malawi will start in preliminary rounds where two groups of four teams [each] will battle it out and the winner in each group will make it to the quarter finals.

“Malawi will be in pot two together with Mauritius, Seychelles and Comoros while Botswana, Angola, Mozambique and Madagascar will be in pot 1. This was determined by Cosafa rankings and on 2017 tournament performance. Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho, South Africa, Namibia and Swaziland have all been seeded”.

Malawi has never won the Cosafa Cup. The closest they got was winning the Plate Section of the 2015 edition after defeating Zambia 1-0 in the final.

Meanwhile, Flames coach Ronny Van Geneugden says the Flames will regroup for a pre-camp this month end before the main camp next month.

The Belgian coach said he would love to have a full squad for the Cosafa Cup as he returns to the regional competition for the second time.

“Unfortunately, the tournament is not Fifa calendar dates, so we will see which foreign-based players will be available,” he said.

Last year, Malawi never went past the group stage after a loss to Tanzania and two draws against Mauritius and Angola.