There was heavy altercation from fans at the Bingu National Stadium, when Patrick Mabedi decided to take off Yamikani Chester in the 64th minute of Flame’s 3-2 loss to Burundi.
At that point, Malawi were 2-1 behind in their 2025 African Cup of Nations qualifiers opener, as the coach decided to take off one of the busiest players in field.
However, when the substitution board showed that Yamikani Chester and Chimwemwe Idana were supposed to be replaced by Patrick Mwaungulu and Robert Saizi, there was heavy noisy from fans, expressing their frustration and discontent over the decision.
Thought it looked the decision might change after being delayed for some minutes, but later Mabedi maintained his decision to replace the duo with the foreign based attackers.
Meanwhile, the decision proved justified six minutes later when Malawi equalized, but hopes of getting something were dented after conceding late to suffer a 3-2 defeat.
After the match, Mabedi explained why he and his coaching staff made that decision.
“Actually, we see the game differently, supporters and us as the technical team. As we see Chester he had a good game but tactically from first half you could see when he gets the ball, he was cutting inside before losing it and sometimes he was ending up in Lanjesi area [left side], overloading it, leaving his side vacant”
“And again, you could see in the second half he started to lose a little bit of endurance, he started to be tired so we thought of putting somebody who we thought he could take the opponents in wide areas and put crosses, the way we scored the second goal”
“So it was tactical we wanted to have two wingers to keep pressing the wide areas and then send crosses so that we can balance our attacking”
Chester made a return to the national team after a spell of sidelines for what Mabedi described as “ageing and different style of play to his philosophy”.
