FAM counting on Mali for friendly

Indications are that the Flames could play a build-up match against Mali’s Eagles enroute to Guinea for their 2017 Africa Cup of Nations first-leg qualifier against the Sylli Nationale.
Football Association of Malawi (FAM) general secretary Suzgo Nyirenda said from the three associations that FAM courted, Mali is the only one that has responded positively
The others are Senegal and Burkina Faso.
Nyirenda said FAM targeted the three teams because of their closeness to Guinea.
“If one of these teams accepts then we will have to travel there on our way to Guinea,” he said.
“The Mali FA has responded saying that they are willing to play the friendly match,” he said.
But he said Mali has promised to make a clear decision once they have finished playing at the African Nations Championship (Chan).
The tournament, comprising players that play in domestic leagues is currently underway in Rwanda. It is scheduled to conclude later this month.
On Burkina Faso response, Nyirenda said its football association has said that, at the moment, the national team does not have a coach who was supposed to weigh the benefits of the friendly request.
“Burkina Faso will wait until they have appointed a new coach before deciding. Meanwhile, Senegal has not responded to our proposal,” he said.
Flames coach Ernest Mtawali believes that the friendly will help his squad to gel as he seeks to guide the team to the 2017 Afcon finals in Gabon.
“My target is to have a mixture of foreign-based and local players. So, for them to gel, we will need to play at least one friendly,” he said.
Flames are campaign in group L of the Afcon qualifiers. Other opponents are Swaziland and Zimbabwe both of whom have four points from two games while Malawi and Guinea have one point each.