Malawi’s JBF crash out of Airtel Rising Stars tourney
The Joyce Banda Foundation’s (JBF) bowed out of the ongoing Airtel Rising Stars Africa Championships after a 1-3 defeat at thands of defending champions Niger in a match played on Friday in Lagos, Nigeria.
In the opening tie,JBF made a flying start scoring lead in the 10th minute through a penalty that was awarded after their marksman Precious Msosa was fouled by Niger goalkeeper.
But the defending champions prevailed and equalised in the 15th minute through Dourcima Hamidou.
Hamidou socred a minute later to give Niger a slender half time lead.
The second half JBF pushed for an equalizer but in their attempt to put the scores level, they were caught out at the back late into the game when Mahirou Hamidou scored.
JBF’S coach Robert Munthali said: “ I must admit that the boys put in a lot of effort but we just fell short.”
The week-long tournament has brought together boys teams from 16 countries and 12 girls’ teams.
The Airtel Rising Stars U-17 soccer tournament is a unique pan-African initiative of Airtel Africa designed to create a pool of talents to feed the national football teams of African countries.
The best players from the tournament will participate in football clinics under the supervision of the best coaches of the Arsenal FC and Manchester United soccer schools. The clinics will be held in April 2014 in Lagos (Nigeria) and Lubumbashi (Democratic Republic of Congo).
