Five years of great escapes, can history save Mighty Tigers from Abyss?

The fluorescent lights of the Mighty Tigers clubhouse flicker as the new coach assembles his squad for what feels like the hundredth crisis meeting of the season, the pressure weighing on every player’s shoulders. Wednesday’s match against Creck Sporting isn’t just another game—it’s a potential lifeline, a chance to claw their way out of the quicksand of relegation.

Third from the bottom. Seventeen points from nineteen games. Eight games without a victory. The numbers hang in the air like an indictment. For a club that has never tasted relegation since 1986, that has lifted the league trophy in their glory days as Admarc Tigers, this is uncharted and terrifying territory.

The shelf that holds their championship medal seems to mock them now, a relic from a different era when resources have flowed and talent has flourished.

Those blessed to witness it can still remember the glory days—when Mighty Tigers have been more than survivors, when they have been predators. Back then, under Admarc’s financial backing, they haven’t just competed; they have dominated.

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They have been the feeder club that Mighty Wanderers has relied upon, a factory of talent that has produced players who have gone on to represent the nation.

But that was another lifetime ago.
The partnership with Bakhresa Malawi Limited through Azam has ended in 2019, and since then, Tigers have been scrambling. The 2022 deal with Mother’s Food Limited—rebranding them as “Waka Waka Tigers Football Club”—has brought in MK30 million, but it isn’t enough. Not in modern football, where every advantage matters and every kwacha counts.

The evidence is damning. They have suffered ten defeats already this season—only Songwe Border FC and Mzuzu City Hammers have worse records. The talent pipeline has run dry; goalkeeper Innocent Nyasulu’s move to FCB Nyasa Big Bullets has been the last bright spot anyone can remember. Even the Nomads haven’t come calling since 2022 when they have signed Emmanuel Nyirenda and Dalitso Khungwa.

Yet there is hope, thin as a thread but still unbroken. The analytics staff has prepared a presentation that tells a strange, almost miraculous story. For five consecutive seasons, Mighty Tigers have stared into the abyss of relegation—and somehow, someway, they have always pulled themselves back.
The pattern is eerily consistent.

After such a poor run of results, Tigers have redeployed Head Coach Leo Mpulura to scouting role while Trevor Kajawa who was at Chilobwe Football Club has returned to the team as the head coach as they fighting for their life.

In 2024, after nineteen games, they have had five wins, seven draws, and seven defeats—twenty-two points, nearly identical to their current predicament. They have scored twenty-one goals, including a dominant 4-1 victory over Baka City. But it is what has happened afterward that matters: three more wins in their final eleven games, enough to finish twelfth with thirty-five points and safety secured.

The 2023 season has been even more precarious. By game nineteen, they have won just three matches and have scored a paltry eleven goals while conceding fifteen. Nine draws have kept them afloat, barely. But in that final stretch, something has awakened—five wins from eleven games, a dramatic surge that has lifted them to eleventh place with thirty-six points.

In 2022, the script has been almost identical: four wins from nineteen games, a shocking defensive collapse that has seen them concede twenty-nine goals while scoring just nine. Yet again, four more victories in the closing stretch have saved them, finishing twelfth with thirty-one points.

Even in the 2020/21 season, when they have won only three of their opening nineteen matches and have collected just fourteen points, they have somehow manufactured five more wins to reach thirty-two points and thirteenth place.

But can they rely on history repeating itself? Creck Sporting stands just two places and five points ahead of them—another wounded animal fighting for survival. The mathematics are brutal but simple: a victory on Wednesday can lift Tigers out of the bottom three, leapfrogging Moyale Barracks on goal difference. Three points mean hope. A loss means the abyss draws closer.

The recent form is suffocating. They have let a two-goal lead slip against Moyale Barracks, drawing when they should have won. Defeats to Mzuzu City Hammers, Silver Strikers, Civil Service United, and Karonga United have become a blur of disappointment. Even the draws against Songwe Border FC and Kamuzu Barracks feel like missed opportunities.

“Eight games without a win, Four losses, four draws. That streak ends Wednesday,” it’s something which should go in their heads.

Behind the statistics and tactical boards are real people. Abambo Alufandika, who has been bankrolling the club from his personal resources, sacrificing who knows what to keep the Tigers alive. Players who have grown up dreaming of wearing this jersey, now facing the nightmare of being part of the first Tigers squad to ever suffer relegation. Staff members whose livelihoods depend on survival.

The weight isn’t just about football. It’s about legacy, identity, and the survival of an institution that has been part of Malawi’s football fabric for nearly four decades. Teams don’t come back from relegation easily. Some never come back at all.

As training concludes on Tuesday afternoon, the players gather in a circle. No speeches are needed now. They know what Wednesday means. They know the history they carry and the precipice they stand upon.

The pattern suggests they will survive—they always have. But patterns can break. Streaks can end. History is written by those who refuse to surrender when surrender seems inevitable.

Creck Sporting will be desperate too. Both teams need points. Both are fighting for their lives. When two drowning men struggle for the same life preserver, anything can happen.

The sun sets over Blantyre as Mighty Tigers prepare for battle. Twenty games into the season, third from the bottom, eight games without a victory. The numbers tell one story. But the heart, the history, the stubborn refusal to go quietly—those tell another.
Wednesday will reveal which story will prevail.

Whether Mighty Tigers will follow their pattern of late-season resurrection or finally succumb to the weight of financial constraints and systematic decline remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: in Malawi football, few clubs carry the historical weight of the Tigers, and fewer still have demonstrated such remarkable resilience in the face of seemingly inevitable doom.

The question isn’t whether they can survive. Five years of evidence prove they can. The question is whether they will—whether the pattern will hold one more time, or whether 2025 will be the year the Tigers finally fall.
Wednesday’s match against Creck Sporting will provide the first answer in what promises to be a dramatic final stretch of the season.