Malawi National Team head coach Patrick Mabedi says he is happy with his boys’ performance against Tunisia, despite his side going down 1-0 at home in the World Cup Qualifiers yesterday.
It was Mabedi’s first defeat in open play in the 10 games he has been in charge of for the Flames of Malawi since he replaced Mario Marinica this year.
Malawi managed to hold Tunisia for up to 87 minutes when they conceded a penalty after striker Sayfallah Ltaief was fouled by defender Lawrence Chaziya.
With no mistake, Captain Youssef Msakni converted to give the visitors a lead and it was enough to collect maximum points.
Despite the loss, coach Mabedi was happy with his boys: “Yes, I should be proud of them. We played according to our game plan. Our challenge was to penetrate closed spaces.
“In the last minutes, we lost concentration and, in the process, gave them a penalty that we could have avoided. But I am happy; very soon, the same team will start hammering teams.”
Tunisia coach Jalal Gaderi said they knew Malawi would come hard on them but experience helped them win the match.
“You can see that we dominated the whole game but scoring was a problem. We respect Malawi; it is a good team but we were a good side on the day,” he said.
In group H, Tunisia is at the top with 6 points, followed by Equatorial Guinea with the same points.
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Namibia is third, and Malawi is fourth with the same points, while Liberia and Sao Tome are fifth and lowest, respectively.
