The Flames have won seven times and lost a similar number of matches since Kalisto Pasuwa took charge of the Malawi National Footbll Team in November last year.
During the period, the Malawi National Football Team has drawn four times.
The Zimbabwean was initially hired as an interim coach before being offered a two-year contract in January this year.
Pasuwa’s biggest feat was guiding the Flames to their
first-ever victory over Burkina Faso with a convincing 3-0 win in a 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifier.
The Flames also ended their 16-year winless run against Lesotho’s Likuena with a 1-0 victory early this week.
They also registered back-to-back 2-0 triumphs over Comoros in the Africa Nations Championship (Chan) qualifiers.
Malawi also beat South Africa 1-0 in the Chan final qualification round.
| Courtesy of FAM
They beat Namibia 2-1 in a 2026 World Cup qualifier and were awarded three points against Equatorial Guinea on a 3-0 margin following the latter’s failure to show up for a fixture in the same campaign.
Under Pasuwa, the Flames suffered one of the most disappointing losses when they went down 1-0 to Sao Tome and Principe in a 2026 World Cup qualifier.
This was after the island nation side, which was then ranked over 60 placed below the Flames, had not registered a win in 18 matches spanning over a three-year period.
It was also Sao Tome and Principe’s first and only win in the World Cup qualificatioin campaign after losing the other nine matches.
Malawi’s other defeats were against Namibia 0-1, Tunisia 2-0, South Africa 2-0, Lesotho 0-1, Angola 0-1 and Botswana 1-2.
Under Pasuwa, the Flames also failed to win a match at the 2025 Cosafa Cup in which they lost twice and drew once to bow out in the group stages.
Pasuwa could not be reached for comment yesterday, but he recently expressed satisfaction
with his rebuilding drive ahead of the 2027 Afcon qualifiers expected to kick off in March next year.
“We are struggling to score, but remember we are building a team. It is a process [and] we’ll get there,” he said.
Football Association of Malawi vice-president Christopher Madalitso Kuyera, who heads the association’s technical committee, was also not available for comment.
Football analyst Parry Chinyama said Pasuwa’s performance has not been satisfactory “considering that the nation anticipated that his coming would turn around things”.
He said: “Pasuwa has failed to assemble a squad that can bring results for the past 12 months. He keeps on changing players and experimenting formations which hasn’t brought any difference in terms of performance as well as winning games.
“Almost 49 percent of his games are losses, most of them coming from major competitions. He lacks consistency in player-selection and fielding.
“My take would be that FAM should consider a shake-up in the technical panel or build capacity of the technical team.”
But another analyst Charles Nyirenda had a slightly different view.
He said: “I take it that his performance has to be assessed longitudinally taking into consideration the state he found the team and where the side is at the moment and if at all there is a forward shift.
“Personally, I feel he is making progress. Yes, the setback against Sao Tome snd Principe was concerning and issues to do with insufficient consistency manifested in doing better away and faltering at home etcetera.
“But overall I believe he is heading in the right direction. Just imagine, in the World Cup qualifiers, the team nearly finished second in their group.”
Among others, FAM set winning the Cosafa Cup and qualifying for the 2027 Afcon as targets for Pasuwa.
