There is no other choice — Temwa Chawinga must be the MVP

On Saturday, the Kansas City Current forward came in as a second-half sub against NJ/NY Gotham FC and scored in the 51st minute in a 2-0 victory. It was her league-leading 15th goal.

The 27-year-old Malawian international was coming off the bench because of a sore knee that sidelined her for one game.

“Of course, with Temwa, when she comes in and scores, right off the bat, I mean, it’s always fun,” Current coach Vlatko Andonovski said after the game.

Chawinga was equally matter-of-fact when it came to her role in the moment against Gotham.

“My job is to score goals. Obviously, I better score a goal.”

Chawinga is surely a lock for NWSL MVP. The nickname bestowed on her last year, Tem-VP, has already resurfaced.

Last season, Chawinga was crowned both the Golden Boot winner and the MVP of the league. She became the first NWSL player to score 20 goals in a single season, score a goal in eight straight regular season games and score at least one goal against each of the league’s other teams.

Gabrielle Robinson, her teammate, was asked what it was like to go up against Chawinga in practice.

“I don’t know how everybody does it,” Robinson said. “I would probably be crying if I saw Temwa coming on in the second half after I just busted my butt against Deb and the rest of the front line.”

Want more women’s hockey content? Subscribe to The Ice Garden!
In case you missed it, The Ice Garden is now part of The IX Sports family!
The staff of The Ice Garden has paved the way for women’s hockey coverage from the college ranks to international competitions. Of course, that includes in-depth coverage of the PWHL too.

Chawinga was among the players nominated for the Ballon d’Or award this past year. She was hurt in the process, fairly or not, because Malawi doesn’t have a large presence on the global stage; therefore, there were no significant national team performances of hers to point to. And the bulk of voters are based overseas, which means players who play in the U.S. often don’t get the recognition they might deserve.¹

Chawinga is getting harder to overlook internationally, however, because of her accomplishments (and Kansas City’s, too). She’s a part of the Current machine that is charging toward the playoffs, and making history along the way.

After the Gotham victory, here’s some of the records the Current have set:

That’s not to mention the records set earlier this season: clinching the NWSL Shield earlier than any other team in league history (by percentage of games played) and the recent record run of 870 minutes without conceding a goal.

Beyond the accomplishments, though, the Current know they have the playoffs to focus on, and Gotham was a good test. The Current’s victory snapped Gotham’s 11-match undefeated streak across all competitions.

“This is probably the best thing that can happen to us, is we play a team that is in such a good form, that is a well organized team that is disciplined, that is flying in the moment,” Andonovski said after the game. “And, we get we get to play them. We cannot have a better opportunity to prepare for the playoffs than playing a team like Gotham. We were excited about this, as coaches we were talking about, like, we can’t lose from this game no matter what the score is, I know that we’re going to gain something. And, obviously at the end, winning, it’s awesome. But there’s so many other things that we gained from this, game that are going to help us going to the playoffs.”

LINKS:

Breaking this morning, Lu Barnes has announced she’ll retire at the end of the season.

Also this morning, England’s Millie Bright retires from international soccer.

Smart story from The Athletic on what private equity ownership means for the NWSL.

Sportico was first to report Berman’s contract extension, the league has not formally announced it..

Sports Business Journal looks at what’s on Berman’s agenda now that the extension has been inked.

The NWSL sees a downturn in attendance. No one has asked me, but it’s a non-World Cup or Olympic year, stars like Smith and Swanson are on maternity leave, and Rodman is overseas for back treatment — those might be a few of the reasons. According to my calculations, attendance is down 4% overall.

The NWSL and WNBA players unions have found strength together.

There may be a deal soon for the sale of the Houston Dash.

Are Bayern Munich women keeping up?

Nice feature on Barcelona’s Esmee Brugts.

The original Lionesses reflect on the progress women’s football has made.

England prepares for first matches since Euros victory.

Ashleigh Plumptre talks to the BBC about her move to Saudi Arabia and its consequences.

1. For full disclosure, I was a Ballon d’Or voter this year. I went on The Athletic’s Full Time podcast to discuss my thought process for the award. I will say this: It is really, really hard. There are so many great players and so many honor-worthy performances. It’s difficult to boil them down into a list of 10. ↩︎