FCB Nyasa Big Bullets coach Kalisto Pasuwa says the only way for his players to perform well in the CAF Champions League is to avoid the mistakes they made in their previous Champions League matches.
In six seasons, the Malawi champions have only managed to get past the first preliminary round once when they beat Equatorial Guinea’s Dragon FC in the 2023/24 season.
They will now face the Zambian Red Arrows in the first preliminary round match, where they will kick off at home before flying to Zambia for the return leg.
Speaking through Bullets media shortly after the draw, Pasuwa said that if the issues are not sorted out, his team will not be able to get past the Zambian side, where the winner will play TP Mazembe in the final preliminary stage, where the winner will advance to the group stage.
“A draw where we expected anything. Remember, we are a team that doesn’t play, so we expected any team. We were up against the Red Arrows from Zambia. These are also teams that are good and we can’t underestimate any team because this is the Champions League.
“We have been playing in the Champions League and I think we have learned a lot of lessons about where we need to solve those problems first because if we don’t solve them, we will end up having the same problems and if you can see the route we are taking, it is the same route we took last time where we played against teams from Guinea and then TP Mazembe.
“If we manage to get past the Red Arrows, we’ll face TP Mazembe so we need to prepare well to do well. Any small mistake you make in the Champions League punishes you and if you saw our last game in this competition, we scored in the first 20 minutes and after conceding a goal, the lads played excellent football.
“We need to work on these areas to say what makes us lose concentration in the early stages of the game, but these are mental games that we also need to be very careful with and, at this level, not make mistakes,” he said.
Asked whether playing at home would be an advantage for his players, the coach said: “We just have to be ready for these games. Prepare to play away or at home. Yes, we would have loved to start away first and then play the return leg at home, but that is the way the draw is, we just have to prepare and avoid mistakes to be able to beat these teams,” he explained.
Bullets’ opponents are the current defending Zambian Premier League champions after finishing the 2023/24 season on 71 points, 12 ahead of second-placed Zesco United.
In the Champions League, they have never progressed past the second preliminary round after being eliminated in the second preliminary round in the 2005 season.
In the 2021/22 season they were eliminated from the competition in the first preliminary round.
They also participated in the Confederations Cup, where they were eliminated in the round of 16 in 2005 and in the preliminary phase in 2012.
