Mwalilino blesses Wanderers with derby glory over Bullets

Blessings Mwalilino emerged as the hero of the 77th Blantyre Derby, scoring the only goal to hand Mighty Mukuru Wanderers a hard-fought 1-0 victory over arch-rivals and league leaders FCB Nyasa Big Bullets in a thrilling TNM Super League clash at Kamuzu Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

The win marked the Nomads’ first triumph over the People’s Team in eight meetings, and head coach Bob Mpinganjira could not hide his delight after ending the long-standing drought against their fiercest rivals.

“I am very happy—especially for the boys. They did exactly what we discussed during training. We said we should close Bullets down and, when we get the ball, we should play,” said Mpinganjira.

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He acknowledged that his team squandered a few chances but was satisfied with how they defended their lead until the final whistle.

“Keeping a lead against a team like Bullets is never easy. We will now focus on maintaining consistency because if we are to dream about the title, we have to keep winning games,” he added.

On the other side, FCB Nyasa Big Bullets Head Coach Peter Mponda graciously accepted the defeat, praising the Nomads for their superior performance.

“Wanderers deserved to win this game. They played very well in the first half, and we were lucky to only trail 1-0 at halftime. We had issues with marking, attacking—overall, Wanderers were just too good,” Mponda admitted.

He added that although defeat is part of the game, his team would reflect on the performance and work on their shortcomings.

“In football, you either win, lose, or draw. Today was a defeat, and we’ll return to the training ground to assess what went wrong, because we didn’t play the way we intended,” said Mponda.

The victory moves Wanderers to second place on the table with 16 points from six matches, just two points behind Bullets, who remain top with 18 points from seven games.