Malawi face Zambia to fine-tune for WAFCON final qualifiers

Photo Credit: Football Association of Malawi.

Malawi senior women’s national football team will play two friendlies against neighbours Zambia later this month to fine-tune goalkeeping and defence ahead of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) qualifiers.

A statement from the Football Association of Malawi (FAM) says the Scorchers, who are through to the next qualifying round following Congo’s withdrawal, will meet Zambia on February 20 and then three days later in Lusaka.

The Scorchers were initially scheduled to play against Congo in the 2026 WAFCON qualifiers, but Congo withdrew from the qualifiers due to ill preparations.

Nonetheless, Malawi are continuing with camp training scheduled for Blantyre on Friday ahead of the back-to-back warm-ups which coach Fazili has described as timely to solve the team’s shortfalls.

“These two games are very important because we are looking at our strengths and weaknesses. We have to test ourselves on where we stand, and the games are coming at the right time,” he told FAM media.

He cited goalkeeping and defence as the weakest link for the 2023 COSAFA champions hence the need to rectify them.

“Winning is our priority, but at the same time we have to develop our team we need to see the coordination, and body language of the players and we should build a better future team,” he said.

“We are supposed to improve in all areas though we have good players, we have to improve all the departments of the field but we will look very much on goalkeeping and defense which have been a problem in the previous assignments”

Fazili will begin training with home-based players while hoping to be joined by foreign-based stars such as Tabitha and Temwa Chawinga.

Malawi will face either Zimbabwe or Angola in October in the final qualifying matches with the overall winner booking the WAFCON ticket.