Malawi National Football Team, the Flames Head Coach Meck Mwase has named a 31 member squad of local based players to start camp on Monday in preparation for back to back 2021 AFCON Qualifying matches against Burkina Faso next month.
Mwase has given maiden full call ups to four players, who were part of the non-residential training programme last month.
They include defenders Nickson Mwase, Paul Ndhlovu and Eric Kaonga of Civo service United, Mafco FC and Mlatho Mponera respectively, as well as Ntopwa United midfielder Mphatso Magaleta.
Mwase said during a press conference on Thursday morning that he will release the list of foreign based players in two weeks time.
He also disclosed that Malawi have secured a friendly match away in Zambia on March 11, which will feature local based players only.
“We will start the preparations with the local players and there is an opportunity to play a friendly match against Zambia which will give us a good assessment as to who is ready to compete for places with the foreign based
“As for the new call ups, their chances of making it into the final squad depend on their performance during the camp. We have always said that the national team is for everyone and moreover we have so many games to play in the AFCON and World Cup qualifiers so everyone has a chance of making it,” said Mwase.
He added that his technical panel will prepare the boys physically and mentally so that they easily cope with the tight schedule between the Burkina Faso matches.
Malawi will play Burkina Faso in Ouagadougou on 26th March before hosting their opponents at Kamuzu Stadium four days later.
“The travel between Burkina Faso and Malawi in the absence of a chartered plane arrangement will make life hard for us.
But We have been in this situation before like last year when we played Botswana back to back in September as well as when we played Sudan at home and played Uganda away three days later in November. So we will manage,” he said.
Mwase has added two new faces to his technical team with Majaha Ndhlovu and Lawrence Waya coming on board as fitness trainer and strikers’ trainer respectively.
