Wa Ganyu

Malawi head coach Kallisto Pasuwa has responded to questions over why he left out Silver Strikers duo Andrew Joseph and Uchizi Vunga.

Joseph and Vunga were not given any playing time in the two friendly matches against Lesotho, despite their strong current form at club level.

Malawians watching the Malawi and Lesotho match on Facebook questioned why Pasuwa had sidelined the pair.

Pasuwa has now clarified that his decision was based on his plan to build a new team, adding that football cannot be approached in the same way as netball.

He said: “The problem we sometimes have is that when you are testing players, you cannot test all of them at once. You people want results at the end of the day, yet you also want me to be changing players as if we are playing netball, and even in netball you need regulars.

“Today we changed five to six players and most of them were injured. But again, people will talk about another player. To make it eleven players, you would need a completely new team. I do not understand why.”

Pasuwa also commented on the performance of Mayele Malango, who scored the lone goal that ended Malawi’s 16 years winless streak.

“His problem was that he could only play twenty minutes before getting tired. Today he played up to sixty or sixty five minutes, and only after that was he done. I think he did well. He has improved,” said Pasuwa.

The Malawi coach started the match with: William Thole, Charles Petro, Maxwell Paipi, Blessings Mpokera, Lloyd Aaron, Babatunde Adepoju, Chikumbutso Salima, Blessings Singini, Malango Mayele, Robert Saizi and Nickson Nyasulu.