Peter Mponda: Our players pushed, reached cealing, we need to improve our squad

Peter Mponda had been fulfilling his media duties at FCB Nyasa Big Bullets throughout the season, but November 6 marked a turning point. After his team’s match against Blue Eagles in Lilongwe, he gave what would be his last interview for weeks—a deliberate silence that spoke volumes.

Before that self-imposed embargo, his words had evolved into something sharper, more unvarnished. The man who once commanded respect through measured words had begun wielding his tongue like a scalpel—precise, cutting, unflinching. His interviews stung with brutal honesty, each syllable carrying the weight of a season that had tested his resolve and exposed the fragility of football’s grand illusions.

When he finally broke his silence after the Mighty Tigers draw, the frustration that poured out revealed why he had needed that time away from the microphones.

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The year 2024 had been Mponda’s coronation. At Silver Strikers, he had orchestrated a masterclass in tactical discipline and squad management, guiding his team to the league championship with 67 points—a margin that spoke volumes about his methodology.

But football, in its cruel poetry, rarely allows success to rest comfortably. As Kalisto Pasuwa’s six-year reign at Big Bullets drew to a close, the administration found themselves at a crossroads. Pasuwa had been more than a coach; he had been an institution, a stabilizing force. Finding his successor was not merely about tactical acumen—it required someone who understood the DNA of the club, the pulse of its passionate supporters, the unforgiving standards that came with wearing the red and blue.

Mponda was the obvious choice. The only choice, really.

The approach came with an implicit understanding: this would not be a fairy tale. The team that finished a staggering 12 points behind his championship-winning Silver Strikers was hemorrhaging talent. The exodus had begun even before Mponda signed his contract. Clyde Senaji and Lloyd Banega, the twin pillars of leadership, departed in mutual agreement and transfer respectively. The entire back four dissolved like morning mist. Other defenders followed, leaving Mponda to build a fortress with bricks that had already crumbled.

Yet he came home. Some opportunities are too significant to refuse, even when they arrive bearing the scent of inevitability and struggle.

Before the season commenced, Mponda did something that shocked the fanbase: he managed expectations. In a football culture where optimism borders on delusion, where supporters demand silverware as though it were a birthright, he spoke uncomfortable truths. Both Mighty Wanderers and his former club Silver Strikers, he declared, were the “hot favorites” for the 2025 championship. They possessed competitive squads, intact cores, strategic additions.

Big Bullets, by contrast, had undergone reconstructive surgery without anesthesia.

The final standings of the previous season told an unflattering story: Silver Strikers topped the table with 67 points under Mponda’s guidance, Wanderers claimed second with 58, and Bullets limped to third with a mere 55. While the new favorites reinforced their squads with calculated precision, Bullets scrambled to replace not just players, but an entire identity.

The supporters, drunk on history and heritage, dismissed Mponda’s caution as pessimism. This was Big Bullets—the People’s Team. Surely the club’s gravitational pull would attract top talent. Surely Mponda’s championship pedigree would translate immediately.

Surely they would win everything.

The season began with defiant optimism. Six consecutive victories painted a picture of vindication—perhaps Mponda’s warnings had been overly cautious, perhaps the squad’s limitations could be overcome through sheer will and tactical ingenuity. Each win felt like a rebuke to the doubters, a promise that Big Bullets would reclaim their throne through force of character alone.

Then came the collision with reality.

Mighty Wanderers, their old rivals, delivered the first setback. It was not merely a defeat but a revelation: this Bullets squad could be contained, pressured, broken. The psychological armor cracked, and what followed was a season of volatility—victories interspersed with dispiriting losses, flashes of brilliance dimmed by stretches of mediocrity.

Six defeats in a single season. For context, the last time Big Bullets lost six games in one campaign was the 2011-12 season, when they finished a humiliating eighth after losing eight matches. That year lived in infamy among supporters. Now they stood on the precipice of matching that disgrace.

The red alert had been sounded.

Desperation breeds innovation, but also delusion. With no natural defenders at his disposal, Mponda turned midfielders into emergency stopgaps. Blessings Mpokera, Yankho Singo, even Frank Willard found themselves thrust into central defensive roles—square pegs hammered into round holes through necessity rather than design.

To their credit, the makeshift defense achieved a measure of respectability: 20 goals conceded in 29 games, 18 clean sheets maintained. Offensively, the team showed improvement, scoring 56 goals compared to the previous season’s 42. Yet these statistics, encouraging in isolation, masked deeper dysfunction. The defense held not through quality but through collective effort and tactical conservatism. The attack flourished against weaker opposition but struggled to break down organized defenses.

Comparing seasons revealed the paradox: fewer goals conceded this year (20) than last (also 20), yet the team felt more vulnerable. More goals scored this year (56) than last (42), yet the attack felt less clinical when it mattered.

Football’s truth is not always found in numbers.

Relationships with players grew strained. Egos clashed. Some signings proved misguided. But these familiar narratives—the soap opera of dressing room politics and transfer mishaps—only partially explained the frustration. The core issue was simpler and more damning: the quality simply was not there.

Saturday’s match against relegation-threatened Mighty Tigers should have been routine. Tigers, fighting for survival, saw their task complicated when Martin Msewa received a red card in the first half. Playing with ten men for the entire second half, they became sitting ducks.

Except they didn’t.

The final whistle confirmed a 0-0 draw that felt like defeat. Big Bullets had squandered a numerical advantage, failed to break down a desperate opponent, and in doing so, relinquished any mathematical hope of taking the title race to the final day. The championship, already slipping away, had now vanished entirely.

Mponda’s post-match interview was cathartic and scathing in equal measure. Speaking to Wa Mpira, he unleashed months of accumulated frustration:

“I’m very frustrated with the way we played. This has been the story throughout the season. We are limited, you can even see today—we tried everything but nothing was working for us.”

The honesty was jarring. Most coaches, staring down the barrel of public criticism, would deploy the usual deflections: praising effort, citing bad luck, promising improvement. Mponda offered no such comforts.

“I’m not only disappointed by failing to use our numerical advantage, but also because of how we have been performing this season. You can see that we are limited—these are the same strikers and same midfielders that we have been using this season. I can say that we hit the ceiling. As coaches, we need to do something.

“We have to accept the fact that everybody is frustrated with this result and also how football has been this season. We need to go, rest and think properly where to work on and improve our team.”

Then came the pointed challenge to unrealistic expectations: “People thought that we would be winning every trophy but let’s sit down and see which players can help us win all these trophies? For me, I believe that this squad needs to be beefed up, it needs to be refreshed.

“Today we were awful and we didn’t do anything. We dominated possession in areas where we were not dangerous. We created few chances that we even failed to utilize. I think the players have reached their ceiling. We need to improve the squad.”

“I’m very frustrated with our striking positions—I am not saying the strikers, but when we get into those attacking positions, we were very slow, very wasteful. And even in the midfield, there was no creativity. Very, very frustrating.

Yet amid the criticism, there was grace: “My first season at Bullets has been ups and downs, but I believe that with the guys I had, they have pushed. We were knocking but we have fallen short. I am very, very proud of my boys. We need to refresh the squad.”

The season’s final accounting offered cold comfort. Big Bullets remain poised to finish second if they won their final match—a respectable position that would have satisfied most clubs, but felt inadequate for a team of their stature and expectations. They reached the semifinals of the FDH Bank Cup, a promising run that ended in disappointment. They won the Airtel Top 8 Cup, a tangible trophy that provided some validation.

But trophies serve different purposes. Some mark the pinnacle of achievement; others feel like consolation prizes for battles lost elsewhere