Malawi National Women’s Football Team, the Scorchers, will  face Seychelles in two friendly matches on Monday and  Thursday at Mpira Stadium in Chiwembe Township, Blantyre.

In a statement released yesterday, Football Association of Malawi said the Scorchers will host the Indian Ocean islanders as part of preparations for the 2023  Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa)Women’s Championship in Cape Town, South Africa.

   The Scorchers will start the championship against hosts South Africa in Group A on October 4 in Cape Town, according to fixtures released by Cosafa yesterday.

Has started preparations: Fazili

Madagascar and e-Swatini will kick off the tournament followed by Malawi’s opening  match.

The Scorchers’ second match will be against e-Swatini three days later before wrapping up the group matches against Madagascar on October 10.

Group B starts on October 5 when Angola take on Comoros and defending champions Zambia meet Mozambique later.

Zimbabwe return to the competition with their first fixture on October 6 against Lesotho before Namibia take on Botswana in the other Group C match.

The group stages will be played on a round-robin format with the top team in each group advancing to the semi-finals alongside the best placed runner-up.

The winners of Group A will play the best runner-up across the three pools, while the top two teams from Group B and Group C meet in the other semi-final.

The third-place play-offs will be played on October 15, with the grand final on the same day in the evening.

In a statement, Cosafa said they want teams to use the tournament to prepare for Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

The statement reads in part: “The tournament will be excellent preparation for the second round of qualifiers for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, with several Cosafa teams still involved in those. Zambia take on Mali, Namibia face Morocco, Botswana clash with Tanzania and South Africa meet Democratic Republic of Congo in the next round of qualifiers that are set for late October.”

   Meanhile, Scorchers coach Lovemore Fazili has started preparations for the tournament.

The coach has called 28 players for a two-day pre-camp selection process at Mpira Village in Blantyre on Monday from which 19 players will be selected

“I believe the combination of the players from pre-camp and the old players we had last year will make us have a strong team,” Fazili said.

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