Saintfiet’s Flames face Zimbabwe
In football as in politics, there are simply no permanent friends or enemies.
This could ring true in today’s 2013 Cosafa Castle Cup quarter-final showdown between two-time finalists Flames and four-time winners Zimbabwe’s Warriors.
The setting is at Nkoloma Stadium in Lusaka, Zambia.
Barely a year ago, the Flames’ new caretaker coach Tom Saintfiet was in charge of the title holders, the Warriors. Today, he will be out to defeat them. A loss for the Flames will see them board the next plane home.
“It’s a short period of time and I hate losing, but we are here to try and get a win over Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is a strong football country with a strong local team,” Saintfiet told Cosafa website on Thursday.
“It will be difficult, but we are here to try and reach the semi-finals.”
Saintfiet coached the Warriors briefly before being forced out of the country after being denied work permits twice.
Speaking to The Herald newspaper of Zimbabwe, Warriors’ assistant coach Lloyd Mutasa said they were expecting an even tougher encounter, especially as Saintfiet will be taking aim at Zimbabwe.
“I think it will be a very interesting game considering that Tom [Saintfiet] never got an opportunity to coach Zimbabwe and yet he really wanted the job here and he would want to obviously prove a point,” Mutasa is quoted as saying.
Just like his stay in Harare was riddled with controversy that he stayed there illegally, Saintfiet too has arrived in Malawi amid some storm. Lilongwe fan Teddie Moya tried, but failed, to obtain an injunction to stop FAM from engaging him.
But after all is said and done, the Flames have to put that behind and try to salvage something in this competition which kicked off on July 6 with seven lower ranked teams competing in preliminaries.
Malawi and Zimbabwe join the race in the quarter-finals alongside the hosts, Angola, Mozambique and South Africa due to their better ranking of 108 and 113 respectively. Other quarter-final fixtures will emerge later.
With Simplex Nthala in goal, James Sangala and Moses Chavula in defence, Joseph Kamwendo, Dave Banda and Fischer Kondowe in charge of the midfield, Gastin Simkonda, Jimmy Zakazaka and Chiukepo Msowoya leading the frontline, the Flames look stronger on paper.
But in football you have to respect the records. You have to respect your opponent. And Malawi has not done particularly well in Cosafa meetings with the Warriors.
In the last meetings, the Warriors prevailed 2-1 and 2-0 in the first and second legs of the final in 2003. Since that time, the Flames have never gone beyond the quarter-final stage again.
Zimbabwe, coached by German mentor Klaus Dieter, have enough arsenal in the likes of FC Platinum midfielder Charles Sibanda to deliver the goods.
The Warriors held the Flames 1-1 in May’s warm up match.
The 13-member tournament returns after a three-year absence. Kenya, coached by yet another Belgian Adel Amrouche, are at the tournament as guests.
