Before the match, the Malawi Football National team under 20 coach Bob Mpinganjira promised Malawians that he will try to win the trophy.

But their first match yesterday was a disappointment, conceding 5 goals to South Africa and failing even to score a single goal.

The play was not up to the standard as the team struggled to win possession, missed clear chances and failed to defend, giving South Africa room to terrorize the Malawi team.  

Mpinganjira said his charges did not play their usual game as they were second on the goal.

“We created chances and failed to score, if we can do that in the next game, I am sure we can get results. We plan to win the next game, we will talk to players to work on our mistakes. I know players are down, we will encourage them,” he said.

In 2022, the team under coach Patrick Mabedi had also promised to win the trophy, they started well beating South Africa junior team 2-0 and Namibia 5-2 but they lost the last match 2-0 to Comoros and failed to make it from their group.

This year, Malawi is in group C together with Comoros, South Africa and Lesotho, their next match is tomorrow against Comoros.

The junior Flames are yet to win the regional showpiece competition, but did reach the final in 2003 when they lost out to Zambia in the decider.

They last made it out of their group 13 years ago but lost 4-2 to Angola in the semifinals and were then beaten 1-0 by hosts Botswana in the third-place play-off according to Cosafa records.