Army teams transfer dominance to league
The Malawi Defence Force (MDF) football clubs’ dominance of domestic silverware might extend to the TNM Super League as three Army teams make up the top-five title chasing pack.
Football analyst Leonard Sharra on Monday attributed the Army clubs’ resurgence to incentives such as promotion when they win a trophy.
“The increase in Army teams in the Super League (to four) has also created competition among themselves. They have an advantage in that training is an everyday routine of their job and they have high levels of discipline,” said the senior sports writer on Monday.
Such is the MDF dominance that Kamuzu Barracks and Mafco have won two of the three cups—the Carlsberg Cup and Presidential Cup—with Mighty Wanderers being the only civilian outfit to have this season claimed the Standard Bank Knockout Trophy.
Now, Moyale Barracks have moved up to second position on 35 points with a superior goal aggregate after beating Blue Eagles 1-0 through Steven Mkandawire’s strike on Saturday, then drawing 0-0 on Sunday in Lilongwe.
The Lions lead on 40 points from 22 games, five points clear of Moyale who climbed from sixth, pushing down to fourth Big Bullets who lost 3-2 to the Lions on Saturday at Kamuzu Stadium to slide to fourth also on 35 points from 22 matches.
Bullets are also at par with fifth-positioned Kamuzu Barracks whose struggles continued with a fourth consecutive 2-1 defeat to Silver Strikers who made a giant leap to third on 35 points from 21 games.
Kelvin Malikebu scored for KB while Green Harawa bagged a brace at Silver Stadium. Azam Tigers were also among the big climbers, rising to sixth on 34 points.
The composition of the bottom three has refused to change as Mzuzu United, Evirom and Mponela United take the bottom, 14th and 13th place in the drop zone on 12, 17 and 20 points respectively. With an expected maximum of 27 points, Mzuzu are as bad as relegated.
