Malawi Under-15 National Football team has finished 15th in Tier C and 79th overall at the Fifa Under-15 World Cup & Festival in Baku, Azerbaijan after beating Rwanda 2-0 in their final placement match yesterday.

Takutzwe Maluwe and Lameck Kamanga were on target for Malawi.

The victory came a few hours after losing their penultimate match 6-2 against Thailand.

Malawi Under-15 coach Joseph Malizani said he was impressed with the overall performance of his boys throughout the global showpiece and he was happy to complete their fixtures with a victory.

“It feels great to have a happy ending to a tournament. I commend the boys for putting up a gallant fight throughout the event,” he said.

Malizani added that the tournament has been a great outing for his players as they have gained the valuable skills and experience that will be vital as they develop into senior players.

The eight-a-side competition, divided into 32 groups, attracted 189 under-15 teams from six confederations.

Malawi roared to a strong start to their campaign, registering three-straight wins in Group B against Chinese Taipei, Oman and Suriname before losing to Algeria and Argentina.

The results meant that they finished third in their group to slip into Tier C of the competition, where they beat Hungary in round of 32 before losing to Luxembourg in round of 17.

In a string of placement matches, Malawi lost to Panama and Thailand before closing with a victory over Rwanda.

The games were played on 68x47metre pitches with 40-minute per fixture and had unlimited substitutions.