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The beginning of an extraordinary story
When we think of the most successful African football teams, several names spring to mind: Cameroon, Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana, Algeria, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, South Africa, Senegal...
One country that doesn’t usually spring to mind is Malawi.
After all, the men’s national team has never qualified for a World Cup and, despite having taken part in the Africa Cup of Nations three times, has never managed to get past the round of 16.
But that seems to be changing – and significantly so.
The driving force behind this transformation, however, is not a male player, but one of the biggest stars in women’s football: Temwa Chaŵinga, a 27-year-old striker for Kansas City Current.
Temwa is the younger sister of Tabitha Chaŵinga, 30, a forward for Olympique Lyon who is also regarded as one of the best women’s footballers of recent years.
“I never had a TV to watch women’s football on; I just followed my sister.” – Temwa Chaŵinga
The two sisters, whose success has been compared to that of American tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, grew up in the Rumphi district in northern Malawi, alongside three other siblings.
As children, their parents forbade them from playing football because they considered it a ‘boys’ sport’. Even so, they trained with the boys until they moved to Lilongwe, the country’s capital, to pursue their own dreams. As Temwa recalled: “It was very difficult for us to play, because in Africa, many countries think that football isn’t for girls. Our mum wouldn’t let us play, but we didn’t listen to her.” (Olympics)
It was at the local club, Blantyre Zero, that the sisters’ undeniable talent began to attract attention. It wasn’t long before the pair set off abroad in search of their first professional contracts, signing for Kvarnsveden IK in the famous Damallsvenskan, Sweden’s top women’s league.
Tabitha went first, and Temwa soon followed. The same happened when the pair moved to China to play in the local women’s football league. As Temwa explained: “Growing up, I looked up to my sister a lot, because she was the one who convinced me to play. I never had a TV to watch women’s football on; I just followed my sister’s lead.” (Olympics)
The rise of a top scorer
It was in China that Temwa really began to make her mark as one of women’s football’s top goalscorers.
Whilst Tabitha joined Jiangsu, then the league champions, in the east of the country, Temwa went her own way for the first time. The striker joined Wuhan Jianghan University, in central China.
In her first season in Asia, Temwa scored nine goals, finishing as the league’s second-highest goalscorer, behind only Barbra Banda of Shanghai Shenli. Nevertheless, it was Wuhan who claimed the title that year.
The strong bond between the sisters meant that Tabitha rejoined Temwa at Wuhan in 2021, after a brief period apart.
That year, Tabitha finished as the league’s top scorer with nine goals, whilst Temwa scored seven. And Wuhan claimed the title once again.
In 2022, however, their paths finally parted for good. Tabitha took her talent to Italy, where she went on to play for Inter Milan, whilst Temwa remained at Wuhan. The team continued their excellent run of form, winning their third consecutive title, this time with Temwa as the competition’s top scorer with 10 goals.
63 goals: a historic achievement
2023 was to be an even more remarkable year for the rising Malaysian star.
As well as winning a fourth consecutive title with Wuhan, Temwa scored 63 goals and finished the year as the top goalscorer in world football, men and women combined. By way of comparison, the second-highest goalscorer in women’s football that year was Mexico’s Charlyn Corral, with 39 goals.
The top scorers in women’s football in 2023:
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Temwa Chaŵinga (Malawi / Wuhan Jianghan University) – 63 goals
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Charlyn Corral (Mexico / Pachuca) – 39 goals
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Kiana Palacios (Mexico / Club América) – 38 goals
Temwa also comfortably surpassed the top scorer in men’s football that year: none other than Cristiano Ronaldo, a five-time winner of the Ballon d'Or, who scored 54 goals.
This feat placed Temwa amongst the players who have scored the most goals in a single year. In fact, she is the only woman in the top ten of the list and also the only African player to have achieved this feat.
Players with the most goals scored in a single calendar year (men and women):
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Lionel Messi (2012) – 91 goals
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Gerd Müller (1972) – 85 goals
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Pelé (1958) – 75 goals
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Pelé (1965) / Zico (1979) / Romário (2000) – 72 goals
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Cristiano Ronaldo (2013) / Robert Lewandowski (2021) – 69 goals
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Kylian Mbappé (2025) – 66 goals
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Cristiano Ronaldo (2012) / Temwa Chaŵinga (2023) – 63 goals
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Viktor Gyökeres (2024) – 62 goals
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Cristiano Ronaldo (2014) – 61 goals
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Cristiano Ronaldo (2011) / Harry Kane (2025) – 60 goals
It was also in 2023 that Temwa helped the Malawi women’s national team win their first title at the COSAFA (Council of Southern African Football Associations) Women’s Championship. She scored nine goals during the tournament, including a hat-trick against South Africa and four goals against Eswatini.
It was not the first time she had made her mark for the national team. In 2019, for example, she made a name for herself by scoring five goals in a single match – an 11–1 thrashing of Mozambique in the CAF Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament.
Nevertheless, it was in 2023 that Temwa truly established herself as one of the most unstoppable players in women’s football worldwide.
The move to the NWSL
Refusing to rest on her laurels, Temwa decided to take her career to the next level in 2024, when she signed for Kansas City Current in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), considered one of the most competitive women’s leagues in the world.
It didn’t take long for her to score her first goal for the club, making her the first Malawian player to score in the history of the American league.
Right from her first season, she began breaking records and quickly established herself as one of the NWSL’s best strikers.
Temwa became the first player in the league’s history to score 20 goals in a single season, surpassing the previous record of 18 goals set by Australia’s Sam Kerr in 2019.
She also became the first player to score against all 13 other teams in the league in a single season.
In October, Temwa showed she could also decide crucial matches. In the final of the NWSL x Liga Femenil Summer Cup, she scored the only two goals of the match against NJ/NY Gotham, securing the title for Kansas City Current.
More records followed the following season.
In May 2025, she became the fastest player to reach 25 goals in the NWSL regular season, needing just 34 matches to reach the milestone.
In September, she scored in the Current’s 2–0 victory over Seattle Reign, a result that secured the club’s first-ever NWSL Shield. During that campaign, the team also set several league records, including the highest number of points and wins, and the fewest goals conceded in a single season.
At the end of 2025, Temwa received her first nomination for the Women’sBallon d'Or, just one year after her sister Tabitha also appeared amongst the nominees for the first time.
Temwa continues to impress in the NWSL in 2026. In May, she scored the first hat-trick in the Current’s history in a regular-season match, in a 3–0 victory over the Chicago Stars.
Malawi’s heroine
But whilst her career in the United States was going from strength to strength, Temwa never lost sight of one of her greatest goals: to lead Malawi to great achievements.
She has always taken pride in the fact that her performances in the NWSL help to put Malawi – and other African nations less well-known in world football – in the spotlight.
Although Malawi’s men’s national team had already taken part in three editions of the Africa Cup of Nations (in 1984, 2010 and 2021), the women’s team – formed in the early 2000s – had never managed to qualify for the tournament.
That changed when Temwa helped the team qualify for the 2026 edition.
She was moved and proud of this historic achievement – making it clear that she wanted to come away with something more than just participation: “It means a lot to me, to Malawi, that we’re there now. It won’t just be about me and Tabitha, because we have so much talent in Malawi. We’re going there to achieve something, not just to take part.” (The Guardian)
And the small country did indeed achieve something. Exceeding all expectations, Malawi reached the final – surpassing the men’s team’s record, which had been to the round of 16 in 2021.
Temwa scored five goals along the way – all in memorable victories against historic African footballing nations: two against Nigeria, one against Egypt, one against Ghana and one against Algeria.
She finished as the tournament’s top scorer, despite the defeat to Cameroon in the final.
And another historic milestone awaits Malawian football in 2027: the women’s team will compete in the Women’s World Cup for the first time in history.
The men’s team, meanwhile, has never qualified for a Men’s World Cup.
Inspiring the next generation
But Temwa hasn’t just been helping her country on the pitch. Off the pitch, she’s also keen to give back and help the next generation gain access to opportunities she herself had to fight for.
Last year, alongside her team-mates and volunteers, Temwa helped put together 8,000 hygiene kits, which were distributed to schools in rural areas of Malawi.
“Work hard and don’t give up on your dreams. Even if people say football isn’t for girls, play anyway.” – Temwa Chaŵinga
As well as providing practical help, Temwa is also proud to serve as a source of inspiration for girls in Malawi and elsewhere in Africa who dream of building a career in football: “It’s amazing that so many girls and young people in Africa, in Malawi, are inspired by me. I want to say that I’m very grateful, and I want to tell them that they need to work hard and not give up on their dreams. Even if people say that football isn’t for girls, go ahead and do it anyway. Go for it and do it.” (Olympics)
Temwa is living proof that courage, hard work and perseverance can yield tremendous results.
In 2026, she adds yet another incredible achievement to a list that just keeps growing: her second nomination for the Women’s Ballon d'Or.
