Malawi’s Cinderella run at the 2026 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) has captivated football fans across the globe. As the lowest-ranked side in the tournament, sitting at 153rd in the FIFA global rankings, the tournament debutants have defied all expectations to advance to Sunday’s final against Cameroon, and their astonishing success can be traced directly to one incredible pair: sister strikers Tabitha and Temwa Chawinga.
Between them, the siblings have netted nine of Malawi’s 12 goals throughout the tournament, with 27-year-old Temwa currently tied atop the golden boot race with five goals, alongside Zambia’s Barbra Banda. What makes their combined impact even more remarkable is that both have long compiled impressive goal tallies and titles for some of the biggest professional clubs across the world, long before their breakthrough on the continental stage.
Thirty-year-old Tabitha, the elder of the two, was born in May 1996 in Rumphi, a rural northern district of Malawi. She grew up playing informal football with boys in her village, kicking balls handmade from plastic and paper, and never saw herself as less capable than her male peers. “Growing up, I never saw myself as different from boys,” she told the BBC. “Whatever they did I believed I could.”
Tabitha faced steep pushback from her community and even her family early on. Her mother would beat her for playing, embarrassed by local gossip that claimed Tabitha would never marry or value education. Even her peers told her that women had no place in professional football. But she refused to abandon the sport she loved, and her path to stardom began when she joined DD Sunshine, a top club based in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe. A devout Christian, she frequently credits her faith for carrying her through the hardest stages of her journey.
Her move to European football came by chance in 2014, when an American NGO worker who had trained with DD Sunshine relocated to Sweden and joined third-tier side Krokom Dvarsatts. DD Sunshine owner David Dube suggested the club give Tabitha a trial, and when the side hesitated, Dube even offered to cover her visa and flight costs to make the trip happen. Tabitha left an immediate impression on the Swedish side, who praised her physical strength, sharp dribbling, long-range shooting, and clinical finishing. She made her debut after her 18th birthday, becoming the first Malawian woman to play professional football in Europe, and scored an incredible 39 goals in just 14 matches.
Her career only accelerated from there: she scored 43 goals to earn promotion for second-tier club Kvarnsveden, then claimed the Swedish top flight’s golden boot in 2017. A six-year spell in China followed, where she won three league titles, three golden boots, and two Player of the Season awards. A 2022-23 loan spell at Inter Milan brought another golden boot in Italy’s Serie A, and after that success, she declared: “My goal is to achieve for African people. I need to play for the girls in Africa. They need to see there are women in this world that can play football like men.”
Paris Saint-Germain signed Tabitha next, and in 2023 she became the first Malawian woman to play and score in the UEFA Women’s Champions League. She later moved to Olympique Lyonnais, France’s most decorated women’s side, where she helped the club win back-to-back domestic league titles, and started in last season’s Champions League final, where Lyon fell to Barcelona.
Temwa, born in September 1998 (whose name means “love” in the local Tumbuka language), followed directly in her older sister’s footsteps, and credits Tabitha as the foundational force behind her own success. “She made connections for me to leave Malawi to play abroad, but most importantly has always advised me to fight hard, to know what I want and to pursue it without listening to distracting people,” Temwa told BBC Sport Africa. Tabitha first recommended Temwa to her Swedish club Kvarnsveden, where the pair played together, and when Chinese agents asked Tabitha for referrals for talented strikers, she once again pointed them to her younger sister.
Like her sister, Temwa has built a legacy of prolific goalscoring. She netted 35 league goals in Sweden in 2019, then joined Wuhan Jianghan in China, where she helped the club win four consecutive league titles, including the 2021 championship that she shared with Tabitha. In 2023, she outscored some of the biggest names in men’s football—including Erling Haaland, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Lionel Messi—finishing as the top goalscorer across top global leagues with 63 goals combined for her club and country. “When I found out I was so happy. I didn’t believe it, but it was so amazing,” she said of the milestone.
In 2024, NWSL side Kansas City Current signed Temwa, and she claimed the league’s golden boot in her debut season with 20 goals, followed by 15 goals in 2025 that helped the club earn the top regular season record. She was named league MVP in both of her first two seasons in the United States.
Despite both sisters’ long list of individual and club honors, neither has ever been named African Women’s Footballer of the Year, an award that has eluded them to date. At the international level, they have been the backbone of Malawi’s national team, the Scorchers, for more than a decade: Tabitha made her debut in 2011 and usually serves as captain, while Temwa earned her first cap in 2016 and lifted the team’s first ever regional title as skipper at the 2023 COSAFA Women’s Championship.
Tabitha, who has played in top European competitions for years, said ahead of Wafcon: “I’ve been playing big games in Europe, but I tell the girls ‘Don’t be shy, don’t be scared.’” Those words have inspired Malawi’s historic run: the side opened the tournament with an upset win over 10-time defending champions Nigeria, finished ahead of 2022 semi-finalists Zambia in Group C, came from behind to beat Ghana 2-1 in the quarter-finals (a win that also secured qualification for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup), and beat Algeria in the semi-finals, with both Chawinga sisters finding the back of the net in that match.
Temwa summed up the team’s mindset after the semi-final win: “I’m so happy because a lot of people didn’t give us a chance at this level, but we showed the world that we have a good team.”
Malawi Football Association president Fleetwood Haiya credits recent funding from FIFA for helping grow the women’s program and fuel this success, but both sisters have urged for greater domestic investment in girls’ football across the country. “If we can put money in Malawi to support girls’ football I think there can be so many like me and Tabitha,” Temwa said.
On Sunday, the Scorchers will face three-time tournament runners-up Cameroon, vying to become just the fourth nation to win the Wafcon title, following Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, and South Africa. If they lift the trophy, the credit will go first to two sisters from humble rural beginnings, who overcame doubt and barrier after barrier to put the small southern African nation on women’s football’s global map.