The Malawi national football team ‘the flames’ suffered a 4-0 defeat in the hands of Egypt ‘the pharaohs’ in the 2023 TotalEnergies Africa cup of nations qualifying match at the Bingu National Stadium (BNS) in Lilongwe, Malawi.
This was a second meeting for the two teams in a space of five days. The first meeting ended 2-0 in favor of the pharaohs a game which was played at Air defense force stadium on Friday in Cairo, Egypt.
Coach Mario Marinica deployed a 4-3-3 formation and made five changes to the side that lost in Egypt. He started with Peter Banda, Alick Lungu, Yamikani Chester, Stain Davie and Stanley Sanudi. However, the changes did not bring the desired outcome as Egypt managed to score four goals without any response from the Flames.
Tarek Hamed was the first to score for the pharaohs in the 4th minute after being assisted by Mohamed Salah. Omar Marmoush scored the second goal in the 16th minute after some sloppy defending by the home side, Liverpool star Mohamed Salah made sure that the game should be out of reach for the flames when he scored in the 20th minute and Zizo made sure that the pharaohs secure all the maximum points when he scored in the 49th minute to make it 4-0.
The performance of the team did not please head coach Mario Marinica who left the dugout early for the dressing room in the 75th minute and supporters also were not convinced with the performance of the team as some were seen living the stadium early before the final whistle
The result means the flames hopes of qualifying for the 2023 AFCON finals in Ivory Coast hangs in the balance. Egypt tops group D with 9 points followed by Guinea also with 9 points on third position there is Ethiopia with 3 points and Malawi anchor the group with 3 points. Mathematically Malawi still has a chance of qualifying for the AFCON finals in Ivory Coast if they manage to win the remain two games and pray also that Egypt and Guinea all lose their remaining two games.
