Current Kansas City and Malawi international forward Temwa Chawinga was sent off with a right leg injury in the first half of her team’s away match against the Houston Dash on Saturday night. The game ultimately ended in a 1-0 Dash victory, which handed the No. 1 seed Current their third loss of the season and kept Houston’s playoff hopes alive.
In the 25th minute of the match, when the score was tied at zero, Chawinga lay down on the field, away from the run of play. She appears to have grabbed her upper leg area, an expression of distress on her face. One of the current coaches rushed onto the field to check on the injury, and a few minutes later, Chawenga was carried off by current coach and fullback Izzy Rodriguez.
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Once on the sideline, Chawinga was placed in a wheelchair and taken to the locker room. She was replaced by Canadian international Nichelle Prince.
“We don’t have an exact update on it,” current coach Vlatko Andonovski said of Chawinga’s condition after the match. “She’s having an MRI as we speak. Once you get the MRI results, we’ll know more. It’s not her knee, it’s just her upper leg.”
When asked about his decision to play Chawenga in Saturday night’s game, Andonovski explained that although it was listed as questionable on the league’s pre-game availability report, it was related to a knee injury, not the upper leg injury sustained in the game.
“She felt pretty good. There was a game she didn’t play because we thought the game was too dangerous for her to be on the court,” he said, referring to the Current’s game against the No. 2 Washington Spirit on Sept. 13. And then, Andonovski added, “I think she played half the game after that.”
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Andonovski said Chawinga was only supposed to play 60 minutes on Saturday, but “obviously something happened. It’s a freak accident.”
Chawinga, 27, is an NRL Player of the Year and Golden Boot winner, and was on track to repeat both honors this season. She leads the pack with 15 goals in 22 games so far this year, and has been an invaluable member of the Current squad, which has enjoyed a fantastic season and is favored to reach the NWSL Championship on November 22. They have clinched the League Shield faster than any team in NWSL history, secured home court advantage in the playoffs and set a new league record for most points gained in a season with 62 to date of publication.
Although the Malawi women’s national team is yet to participate in any international competition, Chawinga’s performances with the stream have earned her international accolades. She was nominated for the Ballon d’Or this year and eventually finished 17th, and on Friday, she was nominated for the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Player of the Year award alongside her sister Tabitha, who is also a striker who plays for Lyon. The two sisters were called up to participate with the national team during the upcoming period, which begins next week.
The Dash, who faced a must-see scenario before their encounter with Al-Tayyar, started the match well, although they only registered six shots throughout the match, half of which were on target.
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In the 69th minute, Dash winger Yazmin Rayan sent a low cross into Al-Tayyar’s penalty area. Dash midfielder and Austrian international Sarah Bontigam picked up the ball, and Ryan Garris, who has played her entire career for the Dash and had just been substituted two minutes earlier, gently hooked the ball with her left foot, sending it across the face of the goal and into the top right corner, beyond the reach of current goalkeeper and Brazilian international Lorena.
“Temwa (Chawenga)’s shoes are difficult to fill,” Prince said during the post-match press conference. “Coming in, I just wanted to play my role and be able to make an impact on the pitch. And yeah, I think even before I came in, we had chances and when I came in, I think we still had more chances and, frankly, there were some unlucky moments and some moments where we just needed to be a little bit more clinical, a little bit more brutal in front of goal.”
The loss does not change the fate of the stream, but it provided lessons for the return to Kansas City. “I think getting a lot of chances, sometimes you think, ‘Okay, there’s going to be more,’ but I think we just need to put them in the net early and kind of, yeah, take some pressure off of us,” Prince said.
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This article originally appeared on The athlete.
Houston Dash, Kansas City Current, NWSL, women’s sports
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