“Off-season affected us” Mabedi blames Malawi’s Football Calendar for Flames’ defeat to Kenya

Flames Head Coach, Patrick Mabedi has blamed the Malawi’s Football Calendar saying the off-season affected the performance of his charges in their defeat to Kenya National Team on Saturday afternoon.

The host Nation, Malawi were flamed in front of their matchgoers as the Harambe Stars, Kenya claimed their first ever big victory in the fixture when they claimed a 4-0 win at the Bingu National Stadium.

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The embarrassing defeat means that Patrick Mabedi’s Flames have just won one game from their last six matches, losing twice and drawing three times, extended from the Cosafa Cup games.

Since claiming three back-to-back wins over Kenya from 2005 to 2011, Malawi are now without a win against the Harambe Stars in their last six games, losing three times and drawing three.

Speaking to the press after the game, Mabedi said his players were sluggish leading to giving up goals.

“With the off-season, it affected us but at the end of the day what we have achieved is assessing other players. Kenya, I said before the game that they would be very hungry because they haven’t played games.

“Zambians were doing the same like we do [Football Calenda from April to December] but they changed, they are trying to imitate what is being done in other countries. We will be playing teams that are already okay in terms of their physical ability.

“We the competition comes like AFCON, World Cup, it becomes the problem. The fitness level becomes a problem.

“The game has given us a very good picture of who will be ready and can fit in the next games and who will not. We were very bad in the first 10, 20 minutes. We were very sluggish, we were too static and we didn’t come to the party,” he said.

A tournament that Mabedi described as the opportunity to try new players, the Coach named two new faces in the starting Xi both playing in defence.

Youngster, Cambridge United defender, Jubri Okedina who paired up with Denis Chembezi at the back might have grabbed the opportunity with his both hands while another debutee Joseph Balakasi threw his face downwards after seeing the board showing his shirt number as the one being substituted just 11 minutes into the game.

After thrashing Seychelles in their previous game, Kenya ran riot of Malawi as they were two up just inside the first five minutes. Qatar based striker, Michael Olunga scored an early goal just 42 seconds from the first whistle before beating Brighton Munthali from 12-yards.

“We quickly adjusted ourselves and we started playing. We had a penalty and had it been that we scored that penalty, it would have been a different story. Maybe, the penalty demoralized the players and we conceded other silly goals.

“We need to understand that we are trying to give opportunity to the players and some players will take it while others will not,” he added.

As Malawi were pushing for the equalising goals, Kenya extended the lead with two goals in the last 10 minutes. Ayub Masika dashed away Malawi’s hope of fighting back before John Avire stamped the victory with the last kick of the game.

Following the defeat, Malawi will face their neighbors, Zambia in the battle for the third place finish while Kenya will take on Zimbabwe.