Malawi national team Technical Director and interim head coach Mario Marinica believes any team has a chance to win the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon.
The tournament kicked off on Sunday, however, Malawi will only be in action on Monday evening in Group B against Guinea.
The other teams in the group, Zimbabwe and Senegal, have opened the group proceedings in the earlier kickoff on Monday.
This is only Malawi’s third appearance at the continental showpiece and Marinica hopes his charges will rise to the occasion.
“Any team has a chance to progress. At the end of the day football is a sport that starts from 0-0 and it is up to each team to believe in their chances otherwise what’s the point of competing,” Marinica told iDiski Times.
“Obviously we’ll go there with very high determination to prove people wrong and for the players who are taking part, to get a chance to become legends. I hope they will rise to the expectations.”
The 57-year-old Romanian is aware of the pedigree his charges are going to come up against in the group stage and believes he has prepared Malawi as well as he possibly can,” he added.
“Obviously the opposition is very tough with very well known players and teams like Senegal with a good Fifa ranking. They have fantastic players. We know the opposition so we try to prepare as well as possible, I think we will be ready.”
The Flames held a camp in Saudi Arabia which ended last week. Marinica believes things could have gone better barring some Covid-19 related issues.
Story by Lethabo Kganyago (@ngwanamogoto).
