Kansas City Current’s Temwa Chawinga has doubled up as the NWSL’s top scorer and MVP for the second year in a row – only two years after Tabitha, her elder sister and mentor, was the Golden Boot winner with Internazionale in Italy’s Serie A Femminile. It is no exaggeration to describe the duo, from Malawi, as football’s equivalent of the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena.
“I hope Temwa and I get to meet them someday,” Tabitha says of the tennis legends. Now with French side OL Lyonnes, the 29-year-old insists that her younger sibling will have a more distinguished career despite setting an extremely high bar in the Swedish, Chinese and Italian leagues, in which Chawinga has won several Golden Boot and MVP awards.
“As an older sister I did everything possible to ensure my little sister is not only good but the best,” she says. “I opened doors, broke barriers and carried her under my wing … I am super proud of Temwa. I kept telling her, ‘It’s your season. Grab everything on the NWSL table. Don’t leave anything you are able to get.”
Temwa confirms that “Tabitha always told me that I would be better than her”, before adding “she has supported me in every single move that I have made … we have never argued about soccer. I have always listened to her when she tells me things to do [in games], especially when I first came to Europe from Malawi, because she is my big sister and had more experience than me. We have been together in Sweden and China. Now I am in America, without her, she tells me ‘You can do it. Just be yourself’”.
Temwa’s first test of mental resilience came in 2018 when Tabitha left the Swedish side Kvarnsvedens, where they played together, for the Chinese club Jiangsu LFC. The reality of having to forge a career path in Scandinavia, without her elder sister’s presence and guidance, pushed Temwa to the brink of packing in her career and returning to Malawi.
“When she left and went to China, I felt lonely and didn’t want to stay there,” Temwa says. “I wanted to return to Malawi and stay with my Mum and Dad. My sister talked to the team and they brought some players from Malawi to stay with me. I then had people I could talk to, who could speak my language [Chichewa]. When I moved to China [in 2020, to play for Wuhan Jianghan], I was happy, because if I had a problem, I knew I could call on her and she would be there.”
The sisters reunited at Wuhan in 2021, before Tabitha left for Inter, leaving Temwa with some career-defining advice. “She told me that we would not always be together and that I would have to take my decisions, that she would go to one team and I would go to another team or country. She told me I had to focus on making a future for myself because there would be nothing for me to go back to in Malawi.”
Temwa, who says she would have opted for a career in the military had she not made it in football, was left with no choice but to arm herself with the requisite fortitude to enable her talent to bloom in the Chinese Super League.
A 2023 total of 63 goals, for Wuhan and The Scorchers, her national team, made Temwa the world’s leading goalscorer in top-flight football that year. Cristiano Ronaldo, who was the leading male goalscorer, finished with 54. That phenomenal form earned her a two-year contract with the Current in January 2024, where she has burnished her fearsome reputation as one of the most lethal strikers in women’s football.
Her 20 goals in her debut NWSL season in 2024, a championship record, earned her the Golden Boot, as well as the MVP award, and Temwa retained both titles this season, even though she scored five goals fewer. “When I came here, I was just coming to try, for two years, to see if I could perform or not. This is a tough league,” the younger Chawinga says. “Our captain [Lo’eau LaBonta] and the senior players, who know this league, advised me on what to do and how to play. They really pushed me to be what I am today.”
As Temwa admits, leaving a familiar environment in China for what has turned out to be an outrageously successful American adventure was anything but a certain step. “I had a long talk with my agent and then I had a talk to my sister and family. Tabitha said I had been in China for four years and it was time to see how football was like in another country. I said ‘OK, I’ll think about it’ and then I took the decision to move to America. When I first went to the US, I had to go straight to Los Angeles, for the team’s pre-season. My new teammates treated me as if they had known me long before. I felt I was in good hands.”
Having established her reputation in club football, leaving a firm imprint on the international game with Malawi, who are making their debut at next year’s Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon), is the next rung on her career ladder.
“It means a lot to me, to Malawi, that we are now there,” says Temwa. “It is not just going to be about me and Tabitha, because we have a lot of talent in Malawi. We are going there to achieve something, not just to participate.”
Armed with lethal Chawinga firepower, underestimating the Scorchers at the next Wafcon would be foolish.
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