The Scorchers believe they have had enough international friendlies and will not need one ahead of their Women’s African Cup of Nations (Wafcon) qualifiers against Angola set for October 20 and 28.
With almost a month before the first qualifier away, the Malawi Women’s Football National Team was banking on the Cosafa Women’s Championship to finalise preparations, but the uncertainty on the regional event’s dates means the Scorchers have to make do with local camping.
Football Association of Malawi (FAM) competitions and communications director Gomezgani Zakazaka said yesterday that there will be no window for the Scorchers’ international friendly matches up to the day of the Angola tie.
But Scorchers coach Lovemore Fazili yesterday said they are not worried because the eight international friendly matches they had this year against Zambia, South Africa, Morocco, Ghana and Lesotho helped them to identify all areas that need improvement.
“Even if we do not play any international matches ahead of the Angola clash, we are good to go. We will finalise our tune-ups with local camping, probably from October 1,” he said.
Fazili added that the activeness of local-based players in the inaugural National Bank of Malawi (NBM) Women’s Premiership will also play a big role in keeping the players in good shape.
In February this year, the Scorchers played two international friendlies against Zambia. They lost the first match 2-0 before winning the second 3-2. They also lost to South Africa 3-0 and 2-1 in April before going down 4-2 to Morocco and 3-1 to Ghana in June. The Scorchers played all these games away.
They also beat Lesotho at home by 3-0 margins in two friendlies last month.
Fazili said foreign-based players such as France-based forwards Tabitha Chawinga and Rose Kabzere and free-scoring United States-based striker Temwa Chawinga are expected to join camp at least two weeks before the first match.
The Chawinga sisters and Kabzere hardly featured in most of the recent international friendlies due to club commitments but Fazili believes there will be ample time for the over-seas stars to gel with the local-based players during the local camp.
However, football analyst Parry Chinyama said although the Scorchers recently had some good friendly matches, looking at the period between now and the Angola clash, the absence of another friendly could affect their performance.
He said: “Nonetheless, we can rely much on our overseas professionals, who are at the peak of their leagues and have good fitness levels.
“What Fazili can do is to keep monitoring his players and probably assist in giving tips in the event of not having friendlies.”
