By Erik Chiputula
Malawi Football National Team legend Essau Kanyenda has voiced out his suggestion on how Flames has been struggling to get positive results.
In the recent past, the Flames have failed to score from an open play in two friendlies and two AFCON qualifying matches.
They lost 1-0 away to Zambia then they played out a goalless draw at home against Zimbabwe before their 3-1 humiliation in Burkina Faso. Their last game of the year was the return AFCON match against Burkina Faso last month which ended in a stalemate.
After the most recent draw many soccer fans rushed to different social media platforms where the majority criticized the team for luck of creativity and fighting spirit.
One of the well-known people who reacted on social media is ex-Flames striker Essau Kanyenda who said that the team lacks the services of striker Khuda Myaba and attacking midfielder Mike Mkwate.
“Flames solution, Mike Mkwate and Khuda Myaba,” he tweeted.
Khuda has been called into the camp unevenly but he has been failing to break into the final squads while Mkwate played much of international games at the Junior level.
Muyaba scored a remarkable 21 league goals in 2019 for Silver Strikers before joining Polokwane City earlier this year while Mike Mkwate is a highly-rated Nyasa Big Bullets playmaker who is regarded as one of the best creative midfielders in the elite league.
The Black Mamba still remains one of the country’s best football exports and who was always keen to impress when playing and would always give it his all whenever thrown onto the field.
Based on the South African Premier League (PSL) standards anyone with 43 goals in 92 starts is definitely a huge success story. If you add another 10 that he scored in his first season with Polokwane City while they were still playing in the First Division then you will realise why Kanyenda is so high up on this list. All the 10 goals that he scored as Polokwane earned promotion that season came in games that the club won which is why much of Rise and Shine’s promotion is attributed to him.
His most productive years were obviously at Jomo Cosmos where he was in double figures in both of the seasons that he spent at the club before leaving for Russian club FC Rostov in 2003.
Such was Kanyenda’s effect in his first spell in the PSL at Jomo Cosmos that he scored 18 goals in 28 starts in his first season in South Africa – finishing just one goal shy of winning the PSL Top Goal Scorer award for 2001-02.
By the time Kanyenda left for Russia after Jomo Sono realised he had no choice but to cash in he had smashed 15 in just 16 starts, the kind of numbers will be very difficult to ever match, let alone surpass in the PSL.
He played a crucial role in Ezenkosi’s Coca-Cola Cup success in 2002 scoring four goals in the four matches played in that competition that year.
As of now he will probably rank as Malawian’s finest export to South Africa in the PSL era.
