Malawi have Seychelles in their sights

Malawi will aim to build on their impressive start to the 2023 Cosafa Cup when they take on Seychelles at the King Zwelithini Stadium in Durban on Sunday evening.

Kick-off is at 6pm CAT (SA, GMT+2)

The Flames kicked off their group B campaign in stunning fashion after beating defending champions Zambia 1-0 at the same venue on Thursday to share the lead with Comoros.

Patrick Mabedi's side put the Copper Bullets under early pressure and broke the deadlock from a 17th-minute corner, which Aaron Katebe inadvertently headed into the back of his own net.

It was the perfect present for the Southeast Africans, who celebrated 59 years of independence with a confident performance against their neighbours.

Malawi failed to make it out of the group stages in the last two years, but they're in a strong position to qualify for the next round after seeing off one of the title favourites.

Mabedi hailed his players for a fine display on the KwaZulu-Natal coast after revealing they had very little time to acclimatise to their surroundings.

"I salute my boys, you know we only had a day to train but their performance was something else," the former Kaizer Chiefs defender said.

The Pirates already face an uphill task to stay in contention in their group, having suffered a 3-0 defeat to Comoros on Thursday.

Their only previous meeting against the Flames came at the 2019 edition which also ended in a 3-0 loss and a similar result this weekend will continue their trend of having never made it out of the group stages.