Yanga hold Bullets in friendly
Domestic football giants FCB Nyasa Bullets drew 0-0 against Young African Sports Club (Yanga) of Tanzania in an international friendly match at Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe on Thursday.
Played as part of Malawi’s 59th Independence Anniversary celebrations, the entertaining match was watched by a huge crowd, including President Lazarus Chakwera and his Tanzanian counterpart Samia Suluhu Hassan.
The hosts were the first to threaten, but the visitors’ goalkeeper Metacha Mnata saved his team.
Yanga also had a moment to create something after Erik Kaonga fouled Moses Aliro in the 11th minute. However, the resultant free-kick was headed over by Crispin Ngushe.
The visitors again combined well with Aliro, Clement Mzize and Saeed Mohammed exchanging passes to break the Bullets’ defence, but failed to complete the job.
Three minutes before recess, Kaonga stopped Aliro in his tracks just outside the 18-yard box.
Bullets countered soon after as Ephraim Kondowe again got the best of Malio Talima who panicked and conceded a corner. But MacFarlane Mgwira, who was unmarked in the box, headed straight into the palms of the goalkeeper.
In the 57th minute, Bullets made two changes as Chinedu Okafor and Thomson Magombo came in for Yankho Singo and Kondowe, respectively.
However, there was no immediate impact as the hosts started to retreat, letting Yanga to raid inside Bullets territory.
Then the hosts came close to scoring in added time, but again they were wasteful.
Bullets coach Kallisto Pasuwa described the encounter as a good training match.
“We wanted to be compact and times it worked. We were working at game management and times it worked. We had moments where we enjoyed possession and created chances. We have learnt a lot today as we are building a team,” he said.
On his part, Yanga caretaker coach Said Maulidi showered praise his youthful charges for putting up a good fight
“We are off season in Tanzania and most players are resting. When we got the State invitation we assembled a young team. I am here as the Under-20 team coach and was tasked to lead the team here. Overall, I am satisfied with the performance of the young boys,” he said.
