Why Temwa Chawinga’s KC Current story’s just getting started after MVP-type season

It’s February and the Kansas City Current is on a preseason trip to Southern California, wrapping up a scrimmage against a local college team.

Most of the starters are out of the match and sitting on the bench over the final 10 minutes.

Newly acquired forward Temwa Chawinga, 26, has only been with the team for a couple of days. In fact, she enters the scrimmage without having trained much at all with her new squad.

From there, the story goes like this: Chawinga receives a pass, then turns and plays a “through ball” behind the other team’s back line, expecting an overlapping run from a fullback. But the run never comes.

So Chawinga turns and sprints. Then she dribbles past everyone on the defense and taps in a goal.

“I think the whole bench almost flipped over,” Current coach Vlatko Andonovski recalled. “All the coaches and players, they were like, ‘What just happened?’”

The Current tamped down the hype around Chawinga until doing so was no longer possible. Teammate Lo LaBonta said her talent was apparent after the first game of the season.

“You haven’t even seen Temwa yet,” LaBonta warned then. “You guys got a glimpse. It’s scary. That was probably 75% of what she can truly do, and I’m beyond excited for the league, the world, to see what she can do.”

By now, the world knows what LaBonta knew then: Chawinga scored a National Women’s Soccer League-record 20 goals with six assists in 2024, earning the NWSL’s Golden Boot award and positioning herself as the MVP front-runner. Across all competition, her goal count for the year stands at 23.

All from one of the most modest people you’ll ever meet.

A humble path to stardom

Chawinga grew up in the rural Rumphi district in northern Malawi, a nation in Africa.

Clean water was hard to come by. In an interview with The Star, Chawinga recalled how she, like others, would make a long morning trek before school just to fetch fresh water in a bucket atop her head.

That’s why she’s now an ambassador with Freshwater Project International, which helps villagers access clean water, safe sanitation and hygiene facilities in communities, schools, and health centers across Malawi.

“I believe everyone should have clean water,” Chawinga said. “I care about safe environments, and I believe everyone should have clean water areas that will help the community grow.”

Chawinga played soccer from an early age. As she got older, she caught on with a team in Sweden and later played in China alongside her sister, Tabitha.

Andonovski scouted both Chawingas during his time with the Seattle Reign. His interest in Temwa Chawinga grew after she scored a world-most 63 goals across all competitions for Wuhan Jianghan (China) in 2023.

The Current signed her on Jan. 3 of this year. But even then, Andonovski tempered his expectations. After all, this would be her first season in the highly competitive NWSL.

“We were hoping this was going to happen, but we didn’t know if it was going to happen,” he said. “So there was a little bit of a pleasant surprise for us.”

The youngest of five children, Chawinga is quiet, the sort who rarely accepts praise without deflecting it back toward teammates.

She recalled seeing first-hand the Current’s talent level during a preseason game against the Orlando Pride.

“I believed in the players, the way I saw (the Current),” she said. “(The team) was so good. We have so many good things in this team. We have a lot of good, experienced players in this team. So they helped me a lot and I knew I needed to work hard.”

Giving defenders nightmares

Alana Cook started the season with the Seattle Reign.

An experienced defender with U.S. Women’s National Team, she was twice on the receiving end of Chawinga’s exploits during a 5-2 KC victory in June against the Seattle Reign — Chawinga scored two goals that day.

Cook has defended some of the best women’s soccer players on earth for a few years now. So the NWSL’s recent influx of African talent — Barbra Banda, Racheal Kundananji ... and Chawinga — didn’t exactly fly under her radar.

“I think we saw Kansas City really start to get going, and saw Temwa start to get going,” Cook said. “I think there was a sense we had around the league — I had never seen a player like that.

“A player where you’re kind of adjusting maybe your whole defensive game plan, or whole offensive and defensive game plan, around one single player.”

Cook is relieved she no longer has to play against Chawinga.

“I joke with some of the girls,” Cook said, “when I was on the plane out here, I was watching one of the games and I kind of just took a deep breath and was like, ‘I actually never have to defend that in the game again,’” Cook said. “I’m now safe.”

Chawinga’s speed is apparent the first time you watch her play. But her physicality is also excellent and surprises many. Or at least it used to — her reputation precedes her now.

During a 1-1 September draw, Gotham defenders tried to rough up Chawinga whenever she was off the ball. She still scored, taking the ball coast to coast and beating one of the league’s stingiest goalkeepers.

At one point this season, Chawinga scored in eight straight NWSL games — another feat unseen before she came along.

And she can get even better

Chawinga and the Current were volume goalscorers at the start of the season. Lopsided scorelines were common.

At one point, in fact, she led the league in shots — but not in shots on target. Her expected-goals (xG) number was higher than what she was putting away.

Some of that was by design. The Current’s defense was leaky and Andonovski had to set up his team to be more opportunistic. But as Chawinga became more clinical in her attack — and the defense improved — that, too, changed.

Chawinga’s xG was lower than her goals scored by the end of the regular season — and that’s a sure mark of a clinical finisher. In turn, KC has enjoyed more wins and clean sheets.

“We’re now able to win games 1-0 and 2-0,” Andonovski said, “and we’re OK with that, because we know we will.”

MVP in the offing?

Voting recently opened for the NWSL’s end-of-season awards. Chawinga will likely be a finalist for Most Valuable Player (and should run away with it, if we’re being honest).

Teammate and defender Izzy Rodriguez finds Chawinga most deserving of MVP, adding that she should’ve also been a finalist for the Ballon d’Or award. The Ballon d’Or has been presented annually since 1956 by France Football magazine.

It goes to the world’s top player over the previous season.

“Obviously everyone can see that Temwa is an incredible player,” said another teammate/defender, Elizabeth Ball. “The selection process is probably difficult for those who are picking. Temwa came out of nowhere, guns blazing, this season.”

Noted Debinha, the KC Current’s Brazilian star: “I think she’s very speedy, but she also gives so much to the team. She’s scored 20 (league) goals, plus the Summer Cup, and I think she has been improving a lot, too, during the season.”

Returning to the scene with which we led off this story — the preseason match in California — one thing in particular still stands out to Andonovski.

“She showed the speed, but also the determination that she has and the intensity, the willingness to make things happen out of nothing,” the coach said.

“And from then on, every game she plays she just gets better and better.”

Daniel Sperry covers soccer for The Star. He can be reached at sperry.danielkc@gmail.com.

This story was originally published November 7, 2024 at 2:09 PM.