What Mwawi, Chilemba, Kafwafwa have in common
Talking about Malawi netball poster girl Mwawi Kumwenda in the same breath with monster of the ring Isaac Chilemba and football ‘Goliath’ Clement Kafwafwa, should be like comparing apples, mangoes and bananas.
But there is something common about them that Malawi sports, especially football, ignores consciously or unconsciously.
Talking about football, Manchester City’s David Silva and Jermain Defoe of Tottenham Hotspur stand at 1.69 metres and are considered the Barclays English Premier League’s shortest players.
Ironically, 1.69 metres could roughly be the average height of Malawi Super League players.
In professional football across the world, Élton Jose Xavier Gomes of Brazil’s Corinthians is rated as the shortest at 1.53 metres, but Reuters puts his height at 1.58m, according to www.thebestelevent.com.
At 1.69 metres and 1.70 metres, Oscar Perez Rojas of UANL Mexico and Bayern Munich captain Phillip Lahm are among the shortest goalkeepers and defenders respectively in professional football.
Ironically, the world’s best footballer Lionel Messi stands at 1.69 metres and even his greater compatriot and mentor Diego Maradona is 1.65 metres, thereby rendering credence to those who suggest that football is not about height.
Indeed, any correlation between height and performance has to be made with caution and proper context.
But what is not disputable is that if a European scout were to come to Malawi, they would opt for the bigger and taller player.
It might explain why Flames’ Limbikani Mzava passed trials at French Ligi 1 side Monaco but could not be signed because he was deemed short for a defender.
Since the turn of the century, Malawi has exported to Europe six players Clement Kafwafwa (1.90 metres), Esau Kanyenda (1.83 metres), Russel Mwafulirwa (1.86 metres), Dan Chitsulo (1.69 metres), Robin Ngalande (1.70 metres)and Tawonga Chimodzi (1.85 metres).
Save for Chitsulo and Ngalande, the heights of the rest of the Malawi exports support the need to pay attention to right physical make-up of players from a scouting stage if the country is to increase options of exporting talent to Europe.
Even across the other disciplines, right build-up matters. For example, Malawi’s sole boxing and netball exports Chilemba and Kumwenda stand at 1.84 metres and1.85 metres respectively. Does that ring a bell?
