Nyasa Big Bullets Bullets Reserves are set to take on Fomo in the ThumbsUp Southern Region Football League semi-final first leg match at Mulanje Park on Thursday afternoon.
The two teams have not met in the league this campaign as they competed in separate groups of the competition.
While Fomo finished fourth in Group 1, our youngsters qualified for the knockout stages as Group 2 winners.
The only time the two sides have met this season was in the preliminary round of the FDH Bank Cup, a fixture our youngsters emerged as 8-1 winners at the Kamuzu Stadium.
At their home, the Mulanje-based outfit is a hard nut to crack. Going into tomorrow’s match they will be buoyed up by the 2-0 victory they registered over our youngsters last time we played them at the Park in the opening match of the 2019 league campaign.
To earn a slot in the semis, Enos Chatama’s boys outclassed Prison United 5-2 on aggregate, while Fomo set themselves a showdown against the defending champions with a 3-2 win over Changalume Barracks on aggregate.
If our youngsters, who haven’t lost a knockout tie against premier division sides under Chatama, boot out Fomo, they will proceed to play Bangwe All Stars in the final.
Team News
The defending champions make the trip to Mulanje without the attacking trio of Wongani Kaponya, Crispin Mapemba and Usseni Assani, who are still on the sidelines with long-term injuries. That means Chatama will have to find better replacements to reinforce his attacking unit if he wants to see his side free scoring against Fomo again.
What the coach said ahead of the trip
“It’s a different game. The time we met them, they were at the bottom of their Group, but they worked so hard and pushed up the radar to finish fourth. They are organized, they have brought in some good players. It will be a tough game [and] we respect them. A good team will win at the end of the day,” Chatama told club media.
