Any fruits from Cecafa?

The international break must have come at the right time for most of the fans of the Premier League and other leagues be it in Spain, Italy, Germany and France.

For Chelsea fans and their ilk, they will have respite from the dizzying heart palpitations resulting from not so convincing performances of their team.

Perhaps that’s the break Mourihno needed to put his house in order.

Coming to the theatrical sojourns of the Flames, you cannot tell at this stage whether our involvement in Cecafa is something we can celebrate about.

Our East African brothers have been more than generous by extending invitations every now and then for us to participate in that region’s football fiesta. However, there is very little to show for from this generosity.

When going to Cecafa, every coach says the same thing, “we are building a team so we want to give new players exposure”. I don’t know how many times I have heard this statement. But after the tournament those players are ignored in favour of the so-called foreign-based players.

I remember one tournament in 2010 during which Henry Kabichi proved a revelation. In that tournament he scored with a dazzling free kick that would have left Christian Ronaldo greening with envy. But on his return, the coach dumped him. Up to now his international career has failed to take off.

I have always maintained that we cannot start thinking about winning the World Cup when we cannot even win small regional tournament such as Cecafa.

Malawi has failed miserably in small regional tournaments such as Cecafa, Cosafa and Championship of African Nations (Chan) which is specifically for local-based players. Yet when Tanzania dumped us from the 2018 World Cup, there was bitterness as if we deserved to go through and win the tournament. Enlighten me folks how can we fail to win these small tournaments but dream of winning the World Cup?

All this shows that we have no vision. We don’t know why we are participating in these tournaments.

We have no long-term plan and we are as visionless as Malawian political parties. n