Three consecutive defeats have taken a toll on the Flames who crashed to their three-year low, 10 places down from 108 to 118 on August Fifa/Coca-cola world rankings released on Thursday.
In Africa, the Flames slipped from position 21 to 33 and moved from fifth to seventh in Cosafa.
Now interim coach Tom Saintfiet has a lot to prove with the Flames who last month lost to Mozambique (1-0), Zimbabwe (post-match penalties) and Angola (2-3) in a warmup match and at the 2013 Cosafa Castle Cup in Zambia.
“As a country, you want to climb but if we do well against Rwanda and more importantly in Nigeria, then we can rise significantly. It is never good to lose to Angola and draw with Zimbabwe,” the Belgian tactician admitted yesterday.
The Cosafa champions Zambia have remained unchanged on position 60th, 10th in Africa and number one in Cosafa.
“[This is] exactly what we expected to happen. Not exciting news. We have not performed well in recent games. To the team and the Malawi nation, we seriously need to focus on other avenues that can uplift our playing standards,” football administrator Jimmy Fombe observed yesterday.
Mzuzu-based football administrator Julius Mithi yesterday called the slump “a disaster and was expected as the team’s performance has dwindled of late. We need good sports leadership which has the welfare of the team; otherwise, at the rate we are firing and hiring coaches leaves a lot to achieve.”
On the continental level, the world’s 18th-ranked Cote d’Ivoire still rule Africa followed by Ghana (24 in the world), Mali (32), Algeria (34) and reigning Africa kings Nigeria (35).
Current World Cup and European champions Spain continue to top the world ladder ahead of Germany, Colombia, Argentina and the Netherlands.
“In addition to the 22 Gold Cup matches, 53 friendlies were played in the past five weeks, including 46 in Africa alone, bringing the number of internationals played so far this year to 515,” read www.fifa.com/rankings Thursaday.
Equatorial Guinea dropped the biggest by 32 steps to 184 whereas Mauratania are the biggest climbers by 21 ranks to 75.
The first rankings were published in August in 1993 when Malawi made their best rank ever 67. The Flames worst fall was 138 in 2006.
