Mponda: We dominated possession in areas where we couldn’t hurt Lesotho

Malawi’s dream of winning the 2025 COSAFA Cup began with a faded hope after suffering a late 1-0 defeat to Lesotho at Toyota Stadium in Bloemfontein.

Peter Mponda’s men were hoping to start the campaign on a positive note, but despite enjoying 54% of the possession, they failed to register a single shot on target. In contrast, Lesotho managed three shots on goal, one of which found the back of the net.

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The defeat leaves the Flames with just one win in their last five matches—losing to Namibia, Tunisia, South Africa, and now Lesotho—having only beaten South Africa 1-0 in the first leg of their African Nations Championship (CHAN) qualifier.

Mponda reacts to the defeat:

“It was an evenly balanced game with not many chances for either team. In terms of possession, I feel we were good, but we were slow going forward. We didn’t have enough numbers to convert our possession into meaningful chances,” said Mponda.

“Unfortunately, we lost it at the very end due to a lapse in concentration. We could have defended better—our defenders all went for one ball, and the deflection fell kindly to Lesotho. It’s painful, but we have to go back and see how we’re going to dig ourselves out of the situation we’re in.”

Reflecting on Malawi’s style of play, Mponda added:

“Yes, in terms of possession, we dominated, but we were not getting the ball into areas where we could have hurt Lesotho. We were holding the ball in midfield, which made it comfortable for them to let us play.

“We didn’t have enough numbers in the attacking third. Like I said, it was a very tight game, and the goal went to Lesotho. I have to congratulate them.”

Mponda also drew comparisons to a previous loss against South Africa in CHAN qualifying:

“We even talked about it during our team talk. It was the same situation as the goal we conceded against South Africa—we had numbers, but today we were again beaten by a single deflection. It’s all down to a lack of concentration from our boys. We really need to learn quickly.”

He clarified Malawi’s attacking approach:

“In fact, we weren’t playing with just one striker. We had three—Wisdom [Mpinganjira], Zeliati [Nkhoma], and Chikumbutso [Salima]. The problem was that when the ball reached attacking positions, our number 10 and number 8 weren’t joining the attack quickly enough.

“It became easy for Lesotho to let us dominate in areas where we posed no threat. When we finally moved into the attacking third, they had the numbers behind the ball, and we were far too slow in transition—we were very, very slow.”

Malawi’s struggles against Lesotho continue, with the Crocodiles now having won four of their last seven meetings with the Flames. Malawi will face Namibia on Sunday in their quest to revive hopes of reaching the quarterfinals of the tournament.