By Benedicto Maguda

Blantyre, September 28, Mana: Malawi National Beach Soccer team coach, Willie Kumilambe has disclosed that the team would start its preparations in the first week of October for 2024 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) which will be held in Egypt from October 19 to 26, 2024.

In an interview with Malawi News Agency (Mana) on Friday in Blantyre, he said as the team would start with international friendlies to expose young prayers before the main task in Egypt.

“We are stating our preparations next week to test our prayers so that they should tighten up and remove fear for the competition,” the Coach said.

Kumilambe added that this would be the second time the National Beach Soccer team competed in an international tournament and pledged to perform to the top.

The Coach said, “We qualified last time though people doubted our performance in the competition. We ended up on a good position.

“People doubted our capability in the competition, now we need to show Africa and everybody our seriousness.”

Sports analysists, Kimu Kamau said two weeks was enough for team to prepare for the continental level competition, saying the prayers were still active after competing in regional matches.

“Our players who will go for camp are still playing and they are active because they have been playing in region competitions, they are also the same that took part in COSAFA tournament,

“We have Senegal in our group but we are not supposed to look at the names, I believe that the form our team had in COSAFA will continue,” he said.

Kamau added that there was possibility that the team would do well in the tournament, observing that the team has experienced players.

“Malawians should expect that our team is going to do well in 2024 AFCON competition. Each competing beach soccer team is being sponsored by government, I therefore expect that government should be in forefront to help the team in time by providing good food and accommodation as this is the best time to motivate our team,” he said.

Malawi National Beach Soccer team is in group B with teams like Senegal, Mozambique and Mauritania.

Malawi will play against Mozambique on October 21 2024.