Fazili says some professional players lack commitment

Malawi Women’s National Football Team, the Scorchers, have under head coach Lovemore Fazili won only five out of 15 matches between January 2025 and April 2026. The record follows the team’s recent failure to secure a win at the Fifa Women’s Series held in Nairobi, Kenya, where Malawi suffered a 5-0 defeat to Australia and a 3-2 loss to India, finishing bottom of the four-nation tournament. In the period under review, the Scorchers registered five wins, two draws and eight losses.

This translates to a win rate of 33.3 percent, a draw rate of 13.3 percent and a loss rate of 53.3 percent. Offensively, they scored 28 goals in 15 matches at an average of nearly two goals per game. However, defensively the team conceded 32 goals, resulting in a negative goal difference of four.

Out of the 60 total goals recorded in these matches, the Scorchers scored 46.7 percent while conceding 53.3 percent. Notable victories include back-to-back 3-0 wins over Lesotho in Blantyre and another emphatic 8-1 triumph during the delayed 2025 Cosafa Women’s Championship in South Africa. The team’s biggest achievement during this period was qualification for the 2026 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) as Malawi secured their place after holding Angola to a goalless draw in Luanda before sealing qualification with a 2-0 victory at Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe.

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Despite these positives, the Scorchers struggled against stronger opposition, suffering defeats to Morocco and Ghana as well as losses to fellow Cosafa bloc teams such as South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In an interview after the Fifa Series third place play-off, Fazili said the tournament provided valuable lessons ahead of Wafcon. “These are good preparations towards Wafcon because, as I have said, we have learned a lesson,” he said.

However, the coach also expressed concerns over the commitment levels of some professional players while praising the efforts of locally based talent. “We have local players maybe doing much better and some professionals not putting in 100 percent performance,” said Fazili

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