Tabitha; the one that came forth.
A deep dive into the Malawian Superstar
Intro:
When Tabitha was stripped at age 13 to confirm her gender, she faced what would be termed a violation, but it didn’t break her. A decade after, she is winning the golden boots in two different leagues while breaking a 5-year record in France.
How did she get here?
The first time I watched Tabitha play wasn’t at Inter Milan or PSG, neither was it a World cup or Olympics Qualifier. It was at the opening match of the COSAFA* Championship in 2017.
I love watching COSAFA championships because they expose me to talents that we might not be able to see at the WAFCON thanks to the qualification rounds. When I opened Youtube on a sunny afternoon, after seeing a notification from Super-sport, I had just witnessed one of the coolest strikes scored by an African.
Beating the opponent’s offside trap, the attacker outpaced the defenders to slot in a cool calm finish, it was a magical way to score a debut goal for your country in a major tournament.
Despite scoring a hat-trick, the match ended 3:6 as they lost to a well-knitted Zambian team, however they will beat their next opponent, Madagascar, with the same score line in their next match. Tabitha Chawinga will score four goals in this match, and her sister Temwa Chawinga* will score a brilliant brace, putting the Chawinga sisters on the continent’s radar.
It was the beginning of great things to come.
Beginnings:
Born on May 19, 1996, in Rumphi District in northern Malawi, Chawinga is the third of five children born to her parents. She began playing football at age five and played with boys until age 13 when she began playing for girls' club, DD Sunshine in the capital city, Lilongwe. It was at this club that her gender was consistently questioned due to her masculine demeanor.
After playing across different local clubs in Malawi, she FINALLY got a European breakthrough when she signed for a third-vision club Krokom/Dvarsatts IF in 2014. She quickly made her mark, scoring 39 goals in 18 games, winning the league’s golden boot during the process.
At this point, Tabitha was 18, and she had just become the first Malawian to play for an European club.
Asian Adventures:
Despite finishing as the league top scorer in 2017, her club, Krokom was relegated and Tabitha sought for new adventures and found a home in China. It was an interesting time for the Chinese leagues who were deliberately opening up to stars from other continents. Tabitha joined Jiangsu Suning for $187,000, an amount that was a record-breaking transfer for the league.
She scored 31 goals in her first 17 appearances, winning the league’s golden boot that season. She also won the Player of the Year Award in the Chinese Women's Super League.
Playing alongside other Africans like the five time African player of the year, Asisat Oshoala, and the 2023 IFFHS top goalscorer of the year, Temwa Chawinga, made the league exciting and one of the classics in the Chinese league was when Jiangsu played Wuhan in a title-deciding match .
In 2021, After the main sponsor of Jiangsu Suning stopped supporting Chawinga, Tabitha moved to Wuhan Jiangda where her sister Temwa plays.
As fate will have it, the heavens smiled on her and Wuhan sent her on successive loan spells to Inter Milan and Paris Saint Germain where she was hugged by the Spotlight.
European Exploits:
Chawinga took the Italian Serie A by the storm when she joined in 2022.
The Italian league was courting European attention.
Juventus had just finished an amazing champions league season as a debutant , finishing second in a group that had Wolfsburg and Chelsea.
Roma had also just made it to the champions league group stage after an interesting qualifying run, and finished second, while giving Barcelona a fight in the quarter-finals first leg.
Safe to say it was a great time for Italy, and they were getting the media’s attention with getting foreign journalists and media houses covering remarkable performances.
This was the season that Chawinga joined Inter-Milan. She opened her account within her first match, scoring a brilliant goal during a 4:1 win against Parma but it was the next match; a top of the table encounter that Tabitha made her announcement to Europe.
Inter-Milan had gone 2:0 down to Juventus in the first half as the league leaders looked to be cruising to a consecutive victory. That was the case until Tabitha scored a sumptuous solo-goal after dribbling past half of Juventus team including their defence.
The match ended 3:3 with Tabitha scoring a brace, and that was when she grabbed the headlines in Italy and consequentially, Europe.
She will score in the next match, and the next one, and will end up scoring 23 goals , 8 ahead of the next person on the goalscoring rank. She will also tee-up her team-mates, including the Cameroonian striker, Ajara Nchout, providing 7 assists during the process.
This astonishing achievement was more than enough to win her the Serie A player of the season, and alongside another golden boot.
She became the first African woman to be the highest scoring player in Serie A.
C'est Paris, il fait bon vivre !
In Paris, life’s good, and for Chawinga, Paris was really good!
Tabitha arrived in PSG right in time for the club’s double-header UWCL qualifiers against an in-form Manchester United. It was a perfect way to make a major announcement. A goal, an assist, a lot of dribbles, and completed passes already gave the French side a sign of the magic the Malawian had in store.
Forming a formidable partnership with French’ prolific striker, Antoinette Katoto, Chawinga made opponents’ turf her playground, while netting wonder-goals and providing delicious assists for her team.
Scoring 18 league goals and 11 assists was enough to win her another golden boot, alongside another domestic trophy; the Coup de France.
She was also pivotal to another Champions league run that was unfortunately halted by a familair foe, but 5 goals and 2 assists was a sign that PSG had struck gold.
After a mind-blowing season by every standard, Tabitha has been tipped by some football fans, journalists and relevant stakeholders as one of the potential African player of the year candidate, having been nominated back in 2019, and while Malawi’s absence at the Olympics might be a dent to her chances, she has shown the world what she can do, but the journey didn’t start here.
It started at 13, where she was handed an envelope for winning the best player of the tournament.
Out of Malawi has come forth Tabitha the continent’s jewel.
Having won consecutive golden boots in two different European leagues, leading the assists’ rank in one of the leagues during the process, what record will Tabitha break next? Only time will tell
P:S- Over the next couple weeks, we will be delving into the backstory of some African Superstars, we hope you enjoy reading about them. Please feel free to ask us questions, give us feedback and let us know .
Also reply this email with an African player whose story you’d love us to tell next.
Special appreciation to Esther Banda, for her love, her support and for the exclusive pictures. Please reach out to her via SheDrone1 on Instagram, Twitter and IG for your photo and media coverage of any sports and media events. She is available on request.
This was a Beautiful Read, Thank You fr Sharing..
Would love to hear about her sisters Exploits next.
This was quite encompassing, thanks for writing.