Kei Kamara

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kei Kamara
10 Kei Kamara.jpg
Kei Kamara in 2009
Personnel
Surname Kei Ansu Kamara
birthday September 1, 1984
place of birth Kenema ,  Sierra Leone
size 188 cm
position striker
Juniors
Years station
Manhattan Beach Hurricanes
Leuzinger High School
2004-2005 California State University, Dominguez Hills
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
2004-2005 Orange County Blue Star 20 (17)
2006-2007 Columbus crew 36 0(5)
2008 San Jose Earthquakes 12 0(2)
2008-2009 Houston Dynamo 34 0(8)
2009-2013 Kansas City Wizards / Sporting Kansas City 118 (38)
2013 →  Norwich City  (loan) 11 0(1)
2013-2014 Middlesbrough FC 25 0(4)
2015-2016 Columbus crew 46 (31)
2016-2017 New England Revolution 52 (19)
2018 Vancouver Whitecaps 28 (14)
2019– Colorado Rapids 0 0(0)
National team
Years selection Games (goals) 2
2008– Sierra Leone 23 0(3)
1 Only league games are given.
As of December 12, 2018

2 As of October 27, 2014

Kei Ansu Kamara (born September 1, 1984 in Kenema ) is a Sierra Leonean football player . He will be under contract with the Colorado Rapids from January 2019 and is the team captain of the Sierra Leonean national team .

Club career

Career start in the United States

Born and partly raised in Kenema, the third largest city in Sierra Leone, the future national player began playing football as a hobby at a young age. Displaced by the civil war in his own country, he and relatives moved to the United States in 2000, before finally settling on the gates of Los Angeles in Hawthorne , California , after initial problems with obtaining visas and promoting a refugee program of the Immigration & Naturalization Service settled down. In the first few months still in Maryland with his father, a laboratory technician who worked in the USA and had lived in the United States for a number of years, he finally came to live with his mother, a casino waitress who made her way to the in the early 1990s USA and settled in the Golden State of the USA. There, the young Kamara eventually started his real career as a football player, where he initially among other things for the youth club Manhattan Beach Hurricanes took and the club even during his high school days, he at Leuzinger High School in nearby Lawndale spent that Loyalty kept. The tall striker was also active in the school's men's soccer team at high school and won the championship title in the soccer league provided by the California Interscholastic Federation with it in 2002 . At the same time, this was the only significant success he was able to achieve with the team. Another personal success that he celebrated this season, in addition to receiving the top scorer's crown with 27 goals scored, was also the election to the MVP of the completed championship. After high school, he moved in 2004 to California State University, Dominguez Hills , which is also not far away , where he signed up for their sports department, the Dominguez Hills Toros , in the men's soccer team. There he developed further as a goal-scoring striker and, in his first year of study, made 23 championship appearances and 93 shots over the entire season to 16 hits and ten assists . In the following year, the Sierra Leonean student, who chose kinesiology as his main course , achieved an almost equally strong performance. He increased his already relatively high number of shots from the previous season by another and came in 24 missions and 115 shots on 15 goals and six assists. As a sophomore , he led the California Collegiate Athletic Association Conference on scorer points and game - winning goals in the NCAA Division II . He was elected to the All-American-Third-Team in his senior year and was also part of the All-West-Region-Selection-First-Team . In 2004 and 2005, while he was still a student, Kamara played for the USL-PDL franchise Orange County Blue Star when he was not playing at the university . He completed a total of 20 league games and was again dangerous with 17 goals. After graduating from California State University, Dominguez Hills, Kei Kamara went looking for a club and initially wanted to try his luck in Europe, where he completed a two-week trial training session at the Scottish first division club Dunfermline Athletic at the end of the year , but was unable to convince there.

Admission to the MLS

In 2006 Kamara received a Generation Adidas contract, but although his nationality was not classified as an international player, as he already had a green card at that time . Via the MLS SuperDraft 2006 , the Sierra Leonean attacker made it as the ninth pick in the first round to the MLS franchise Columbus Crew , who acquired the pick in exchange for Jeff Cunningham from the Colorado Rapids . With the crew, he worked on his breakthrough from the start, made his debut soon after his transfer and made 19 league appearances by the end of the season, nine of which he was on the pitch from the start, and three goals. He was also regularly active in the reserve team of the Columbus Crew with games in the MLS Reserve Division , where he made ten league appearances and two hits. After a last place in the Eastern Conference , the striker in the 2007 game year did not really match the previous year's performance. In at least 17 championship appearances, he only made four starts and was mostly only used as a substitute player. Nevertheless, he got another two hits here.

After a flying visit to the Quakes in Houston

Kei Kamara (left) in the game against the New York Red Bulls in 2009; right in the picture: the Mexican loaner Diego Jiménez

In the break before Major League Soccer 2008 , Kamara was acquired in exchange for Brian Carroll by the San José Earthquakes , where he quickly became a regular in the franchise's attack line. In a total of twelve league appearances, he was used eleven from the start of the game, scored two goals and was also appointed from his home country to the national team for the first time in May and June 2008, where he should participate in the World Cup qualification. After only a short stay in California, he was drawn from his home state to Texas during the current season , where on July 24, 2008 his move to the local MLS franchise Houston Dynamo was announced. The new national player switched to the franchise for an additional first-round draft pick and an allocation (a certain amount of money that is paid to a club in order to put a player of the respective club under contract with his own club) to the franchise, with which he is at the end of the season ranked first in the Western Conference and stood out from the runner-up, CD Chivas USA , with a comfortable cushion . Another success that the team was able to record this season was the receipt of the MLS Supporters' Shield , which Houston Dynamo received as the team with the highest points. In addition, Kamara became a SuperLiga finalist with the team when they were knocked out on penalties in the 2008 competition in the final against the New England Revolution . By the end of the season, the tall striker had made ten league appearances, two goals and as many assists. Almost dangerous for goals, Kamara also appeared in the CONCACAF Champions League 2008/09 , in which he was eligible to participate with Houston Dynamo due to the victory in the MLS Cup in 2007. In the course of the competition he was used in seven games of his team and scored two goals. He scored both goals on September 30, 2008 in the group game against the UNAM Pumas , in which it was 4: 4 after 50 minutes. In addition to Kamara, Craig Waibel also met in a double pack on the American side . As group runner-up behind the Pumas advanced into the quarter-finals, the Texans were eliminated there against the CF Atlante with a clear total score of 1: 4 from the current competition.

In the 2009 game year , the former street footballer, described as fast, assertive and intelligent, had his real breakthrough with the Texans, where he was used as a regular in 22 championship games, of which he started in 20 and also contributed five goals and one assist. Although his performance as a striker, he was transferred to another MLS franchise during the current season and was only able to continue his path as a regular in attack to a limited extent. Kei Kamara, who is very attached to his home country and who often visits his native country and also takes part in charity soccer games, switched to the Kansas City Wizards at the time in exchange for Abe Thompson and the payment of an allocation , with whom he became a successful and regular should develop appropriate goalscorers. After the change in mid-September 2009, the offensive player had a total of six league games and one goal for the Wizards by the end of the season. Before that, he played two games and one goal in the 2009/10 CONCACAF Champions League for Houston Dynamo .

Accurate in Kansas City

Under coach / general manager Peter Vermes , Kei Kamara advanced to one of the league's strongest offensive players right from the start of the 2010 game year , which he mostly demonstrated as a goal scorer or preparer. As the main pillar of the attack line, he had an impressive record of ten goals and six assists in 29 completed league games by the end of the season. As the top goalscorer and second best assists in his team, he was honored as the team's top scorer and MVP at the end of the season. The Sierra Leonean team player also showed another special performance in the 2-1 friendly against Manchester United during the summer break, when he provided the template for his team's first goal and then scored the second goal himself. For another reason, however, Kamara became more and more popular this year. In the early stages of the new season that has just begun, the striker caused a sensation on June 24, 2010 in the 0-0 draw against Los Angeles Galaxy when he did not place a supposedly easy ball in the opponent's goal from a few centimeters away. Instead, he missed the ball when he tried to shoot and pushed the game device into the goal with his arm when he fell, which was then presented internationally in the media. Despite this mishap, Vermes continued to use him on the side of Teal Bunbury , Josh Wolff , Zoltán Hercegfalvi or Omar Bravo as a core force in the attack.

In the 2011 season, which is currently still running (as of August 20, 2011) , Kamara started with two assists in a 3-2 away win over CD Chivas USA . Subsequently, he was mostly in action from the start for the franchise, which had been renamed Sporting Kansas City before the start of the season , but was unable to maintain this performance over the entire season compared to the previous year and mainly operated in June and July In 2011 mainly as a substitute player, although he had to give way to other players. To date (as of August 20, 2011), the international has made 21 league appearances, six goals and two assists.

The following important information is missing from this article or section:
Stations until the end of 2018 are missing.
Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

Colorado Rapids

For the 2019 season , Kamara was selected by the new FC Cincinnati franchise in the expansion draft and immediately swapped for an international squad place at the Colorado Rapids .

National team career

As already mentioned, Kei Kamara was called up as a player of the San José Earthquakes in May and June 2008 by the then national coach Mohamed Kanu for the first time in the senior national team of his country of birth. He was in the squad for several qualifying games for the 2010 World Cup and was subsequently used as part of this squad several times, with a proven record of at least five international appearances by the end of 2008. In addition, the striker was demonstrably brought into the national team sporadically in the following years, where he acted in the attack of the Leon Stars , especially in his early days on the side of the probably best-known and most important Sierra-Leonean football player, Mohamed Kallon . Also under the Swede Lars-Olof Mattsson , who among other things led the fortunes of the Sierra Leonean national team from 2011, Kamara was brought into the squad several times and used. In addition, he completed several players with his home country in the qualification for the 2012 African Championship , where he and the team will fight in the group stage until the beginning of October for a possible entry into the African Championship of the following year against the opponents South Africa , Niger and Egypt .

successes

with the Leuzinger High School
  • 1 × CIF Champion: 2002
  • 1 × MVP of the game year 2002
  • 1 × top scorer of the game year 2002 (27 goals)
with California State University, Dominguez Hills
  • 1 × election to the All-American-Third-Team : 2005
  • 1 × election to the All-West-Region-Selection-First-Team : 2005
with Houston Dynamo

Web links

Commons : Kei Kamara  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes and individual references

  1. ↑ Pars fans bring Kei Kamara for a Trial at East End Park ( Memento of the original from June 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), accessed August 20, 2011 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dafc.net
  2. ^ New Trialist Kei Kamara , accessed August 20, 2011
  3. ↑ US U-20 players headline 2006 class , accessed August 20, 2011
  4. ^ MLS Draft Picks 2006 , accessed August 20, 2011
  5. ^ Crew Acquires 2006 First Round Draft Pick From Colorado For Jeff Cunningham , accessed August 20, 2011
  6. ↑ a b Former Toro All-American Kei Kamara Named to Sierra Leone National Team for World Cup Qualifying , accessed on August 20, 2011
  7. ↑ Kei Kamara misses open goal from two inches out for Kansas City , accessed August 20, 2011
  8. ↑ Is this the miss of the century? (English), accessed August 20, 2011
  9. ↑ Goal Preventer - Video: Missed Shot of the Year , accessed on August 20, 2011
  10. ↑ MLS Expansion Draft: Cincinnati Add Four Players and International Spot , fccincinnati.com, December 11, 2018, accessed December 12, 2018.
  11. ↑ Rapids acquire two-time MLS All-Star Kei Kamara , coloradorapids.com, December 11, 2018, accessed December 12, 2018.
  12. ↑ Kei Kamara moved to the Kansas City Wizards in the current game year, but as a regular in attack he had a significant share in second place in the Western Conference
personal data
SURNAME Kamara, kei
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kamara, Kei Ansu (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION sierra-leonian soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1984
PLACE OF BIRTH Kenema , Sierra Leone