Temwa Chawinga, one of Africa’s most prolific female footballers, will not be part of the delayed 2024 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON), which kicks off this Saturday with hosts Morocco and Zambia facing off in Rabat in the opening match.
Although Malawi did not qualify for the continent’s biggest women’s football competition, Chawinga has thrown her support behind Zambia.
After joining the Kansas City Current last year from Wuhan Jianghan University FC in China—where she scored 63 goals in all competitions in 2023 for club and country—Chawinga went on to win the Golden Boot in the 2024 National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), scoring 21 goals in 27 games. She beat Africa’s CAF Player of the Year, Zambia and Orlando Pride’s Barbra Banda, who netted 16 goals.
With her country not participating in any major international competition this year, Temwa will be watching from the sidelines, hoping Zambia can lift the WAFCON trophy.
“I would like our neighbouring country, Zambia, to win WAFCON because we speak the same language and we share the same culture,” Chawinga told BolaNews in an exclusive interview. “So I wish Zambia to win and my friends Barbra Banda and Racheal Kundananji to win it.”
Chawinga sad to miss WAFCON
Malawi has never featured in an international competition outside the COSAFA, a regional tournament for Southern African countries, which they won for the first time in 2023. Temwa played a pivotal role in that triumph, scoring 9 goals.
“I feel so bad not participating in such a big tournament,” Temwa bemoaned in November last year. “Maybe they [the Football Association of Malawi] can go to Zambia and learn how women’s football works or something. Because Zambia enters every competition, big competitions. But for us in Malawi, it’s just COSAFA, which we know.
“We now have some Malawian players playing in France, Zambia, DR Congo, and myself here in the USA. So I think if maybe we put a lot of money into women’s football, I think the national team is going to be strong and also participate in big tournaments like the World Cup and WAFCON.”
This season, Chawinga has also scored 8 goals and provided 2 assists in 13 NWSL games. She will be hoping to help her country qualify for the 2026 WAFCON. Malawi will face Angola in a home-and-away qualifier in October, with a place at the tournament at stake.
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