Zimpapers Logo

Grace Chingoma Senior Sports Reporter

VETERAN Zimbabwean coach Kallisto Pasuwa believes the Malawian practice of playing two matches within 48 hours is not healthy and has urged that country’s football leaders to reconsider the practice.

In Malawi’s top-flight league, it is usual to fixture some of the matches in less than 48 hours.

The away teams play on Saturdays and Sundays, and the Super League of Malawi justifies the act as a way of cutting travelling costs.

In the Zimbabwean league, the Premiership clubs are used to either a match mid-week or another round during the weekend.

But Nyasa Big Bullets’ league winning coach Pasuwa, told the club’s website as he reflected on the challenges his club faced as they defended their title, said this season was the most difficult for him and the club.

Pasuwa early this month won the league with a game to spare etching his name as one of the coaching legends at the Blantyre side.

“Going forward, I would urge the authorities to look into this (playing two games in less than 48 hours). It’s not healthy for every player regardless of the team he is playing for to play two games within that short period of time,” Pasuwa told Bullets website.

“If you look at the season with an analytical eye, you might think that my players did not perform, but I tend to disagree. The players did their best in relation to the circumstances. We had a very short pre-season training coupled with stoppages due to the Covid-19 break and sometimes playing two games within 24 hours,” he said.

“We started in October (2020) and we have finished in October (2021), meaning it was a one-year long season and we had to fight against good teams, fatigue as well as injuries on my players. We had almost 21 players down along the way and this was caused by the unavailability of time to compensate players with energy levels.”