This is an installment of our monthly series, “Soccer in ___.” Each article takes you inside the women’s game in a different part of the world. Whether through players’ stories, a standout moment or a snapshot of the history of the sport in a particular nation, the purpose of this series is to bring the world of women’s soccer closer together as we prepare for the 2027 World Cup in Brazil — the first women’s World Cup in South America.
We recently took you to Canada, Mexico, Paraguay and Colombia. This month, we’re heading to Malawi.
It did not matter that Tabitha Chawinga’s back was facing the Algeria goal.
For the 30-year-old striker, scoring is instinct and, in this moment, 33 minutes into Malawi’s semifinal at the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, instinct told her to chip the ball backwards with her left foot as she fell to the ground. In that split second, the shot floated over the three opposition defenders behind her, ricocheted off the post and nestled neatly in the back of the net — to Algeria’s disbelief.
This might just be remembered as one of the best goals scored on African women’s football’s biggest stage — not only for the acrobatic genius displayed by the Malawi captain but for the historic weight it carried. That sensational strike sparked a thrilling display by the tournament debutants, punctuated by the chemistry shared between Chawinga and her younger sister Temwa, 27.
The siblings scored all three goals between them over 90 minutes of play Wednesday to help top Algeria, 3-1, extending Malawi’s magical run into WAFCON’s final on Sunday. They face a tough opponent in Cameroon, with both vying to become only the fourth country to lift this trophy since the tournament began in 1998.
Over the past three weeks, the Scorchers, as Malawi’s national team are known, have stunned the soccer-watching world.
They opened their tournament by beating the 10-time and current champions Nigeria in their first-ever WAFCON finals game. Malawi advanced out of a complicated group that included neighbors and rivals Zambia and punched their ticket to the World Cup in Brazil next June and July with victory over Ghana in the quarterfinals. Advancing to the final is their latest milestone.
“To reach a final is very, very important for the young girls, and for me and my sister,” Tabitha Chawinga told reporters after the win against Algeria. “That was my dream. It was also the dream of my sister, to reach the finals like this and to go for World Cup. So we thank God for everything.”
“A lot of people didn’t give us a chance, like we can reach this level,” Temwa later added. “We showed the whole (world) that we have good players and we can fight hard — to win the games, to qualify for the World Cup — so, we are happy for that.”
Malawi have gone from being dismissed as the lowest-ranked African nation in this competition, 153rd in the FIFA table when it was last updated in June, to a team the world is rallying behind.
To outsiders, the small, southeast African nation may seem like a typical underdog, but those who have paid close attention know the national team’s current strength follows years of investment and is long overdue — with players like Tabitha opening doors for Malawi’s next generation and those like Temwa taking full advantage of the opportunities being presented to them.
Malawi’s women’s national team only played their first official match in the inaugural COSAFA (Council of Southern Africa Football Associations) Women’s Championship in 2002 — an annual competition for teams in Southern Africa.
Maggie Chombo-Sadiki, a coach, former player and pioneer for women’s soccer in the country, took part in those very first games, telling journalist Ali Howorth in a recent interview: “It was all my dreams come true. I was always thinking, ‘Could we one day have a national team?’ It was everything I was dreaming of.”
That national team, however, went on to lose their inaugural match 8-0 to Zambia, who, at the time, had a far more developed women’s soccer program. Eventually, the Football Association of Malawi (FAM) dissolved the team as sponsors pulled their funding from the sport. While the senior side lingered in a precarious state, women’s soccer slowly grew at the lower levels.
About a decade later, the Chawinga sisters began their careers, with an 18-year-old Tabitha leaving Malawi for a third-tier side in Sweden in 2017, becoming the first Malawian to play for a European club.
Her departure felt like a collective success for the sport back home, with the late David Dube, then owner of DD Sunshine, the Malawian club she first played for, paying for her flight and telling her prospective new team, Krokom-Dvarsatts, that if they were still not convinced about Tabitha’s ability after her trials, they could send her back home without paying a dime. It was a low-risk gamble for the Swedish side, with Tabitha proving to be one of the best strikers in the world.
Tabitha’s career since has spanned various teams across Asia and Europe, with loans at some of the biggest clubs in the world, including Inter and Paris Saint-Germain. In 2024, she signed with leading French club Lyon on a three-year contract that runs through June next year.
In betting on herself, Tabitha inspired a generation of Malawian players to follow in her footsteps — including, most importantly, her youngest sister.
“My parents did not support the idea that I wanted to play football. They wanted me to focus solely on school,” Tabitha told The Guardian in 2023. “In Malawi, and in most parts of Africa, parents believe that you have to go to school for you to do well… I was the one that took my little sister, Temwa, to go and play football.”
Temwa’s pro career followed a similar path as her older sister’s.
She got her start in Malawi at Blantyre Zero before spending two years in Sweden and then three in China, where she mastered her uncanny ability to score. Her talents caught the attention of the NWSL’s Kansas City Current, where she has played since 2024.
“She has been there for me always,” Temwa said about Tabitha on a recent CAF TV podcast. “When I started (to play) soccer, I go to Sweden because of her. She opened the door for me. Like, she called me to go there, to tell the owner of the team, ‘I have a younger sister, she plays well’, but (the) owner of the team, they doubt her. They said, ‘It’s not possible one family to have two players like this’.
“She said, ‘No, I’ll put my money (on it). I’ll book the air ticket, this or whatever. But when you see that she’s good, you give me back the money’. The owner said, ‘All right’, so we just booked the air ticket… That’s why I’m here today: because of her.”
In June, Temwa, who is the youngest of five sisters, signed a contract extension that will keep her in Kansas City through 2029 — testament to the home she has built in the United States. She previously expressed in interviews that she was nervous to make the jump to the NWSL on her own, especially moving so far from home. At previous clubs, she always had her sister somewhat nearby. Going to the United States meant betting on herself in the same way Tabitha did a decade earlier.
Despite being more than 4,000 miles away in Morocco for this WAFCON, Temwa continues to FaceTime her Kansas City teammates as they push through the second half of their NWSL season. They are supporting Temwa as much as Temwa is supporting them, but even when playing in a North America-based league, the striker maintains deep ties to her roots.
During her rookie season, while in Washington, D.C., Temwa met with Justice Chombo, Malawi’s ambassador to the United States, before a game against Washington Spirit.
The Current’s chief marketing officer, Jocelyn Monroe, described this as “classic Temwa” — “to see her be so humble, so engaging and so kind, and so overtaken by this celebration, and then go out on a pitch that afternoon and have an amazing game… was, really, a special moment”. Seeing her in her element that day showed Monroe a side of Temwa that she had not yet seen, and it stayed with her.
In Kansas City, Temwa has developed into one of the best strikers in the world, winning the NWSL Golden Boot and NWSL Most Valuable Player awards two years in a row.
Now, her goal against Algeria on Wednesday tied her with Zambia captain Barbra Banda, a fellow NWSL star with the Orlando Pride, for the most goals scored in the tournament with five. Zambia exited the competition after the group stage, leaving the very real possibility that Temwa may break yet another record in Malawi’s historic debut campaign.
“We’re on the ride and the journey with her, and watching what she’s doing over there is incredible,” Kansas City head coach Chris Armas said on Wednesday, hours before Malawi qualified for the final. “When you talk about what she means to Malawi, what she means to our team, our city, what she means to the NWSL, I think it’s priceless.
“It’s not always so common that you come across people like her and players like her. She’s one of the best players in the world. So impactful. A player that our sport should celebrate, women’s football should celebrate, our league should celebrate.”
Again, this is Malawi’s first time in WAFCON’s finals.
Ahead of the previous edition played last July, the Malawian football association pulled their team from the qualifying phase due to lack of funds. Featuring in Africa’s top competition is what these players have long strived for. Now, they’re meeting the moment.
Winning the quarterfinal meant an automatic berth at the 2027 World Cup. After that match, the joy was evident in the Chawinga sisters, who rolled through the stadium’s mixed zone together. The pair were all smiles, and Tabitha had her arm around Temwa’s shoulders.
It is clear each sister plays for the other — as well as for all the younger players who are now running through the doors they opened. As Temwa told The Athletic ahead of the tournament: Malawi are here to compete, and there are so many youngsters back in their homeland who could benefit tenfold from this stint in the global spotlight.
Will Temwa secure another Golden Boot, this one at international level? Will Malawi win WAFCON as first-time qualifiers? Will another young Malawian player sign with an overseas club and capture the world’s attention in the near future?
Some of those answers will come Sunday in Rabat as the Scorchers push one last time this summer to etch their place in African women’s football history.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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