{"id":43380,"date":"2016-07-09T22:52:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-10T02:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=43380"},"modified":"2016-07-09T22:52:00","modified_gmt":"2016-07-10T02:52:00","slug":"kamara-comes-up-huge-against-old-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=43380","title":{"rendered":"Kamara Comes Up Huge Against Old Team"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo

Photo credit: Kari Heistad\/capturedimages.biz<\/p><\/div>\n

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Goals haven\u2019t come easily for Kei Kamara since he was\u2014much to his surprise\u2014traded from the Columbus Crew to the New England Revolution on May 12th<\/sup>. One of the top scorers in MLS over the past few seasons, Kamara had just two goals in seven MLS matches for the Revolution going into the match, with both goals coming in a 3-2 losing effort in Montreal last weekend.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, while the Sierra Leone striker only got his name on the scoresheet once, the striker played a huge role in all three of the Revolution\u2019s goals, as his new side beat his old one 3-1. Kamara took five shots in the match, putting two on frame and also won four aerial duels \u2013 two times as many as any other player on the pitch \u2013 while being highly involved with 38 touches.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a game that I thought was ever going to happen\u201d, said Kamara, who helped lead the Crew to an MLS Cup appearance last season. \u201cWhen I was part of that team I just saw myself there and the only time that I saw myself playing against those guys was just when we do scrimmages at training. There were three [games against them] marked on the calendar and a lot of people were just making me aware that you get to play them this many times. For me, it was a fun game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kamara played a key role in the game\u2019s opener in just the third minute, challenging two Crew defenders for a cross and forcing a misplayed clearance right to Lee Nguyen. Nguyen made no mistake, volleying in a shot to give the Revolution an early lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great cross from Chris [Tierney],\u201d said Kamara. \u201cI actually thought I was going to get my head on it, but game plan was don\u2019t let Kei get his head on anything and it worked out perfect. The ball went back outside and when it left Lee\u2019s foot it felt good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s Kei Kamara for you,\u201d said midfielder Kelyn Rowe. \u201cHe\u2019s a goal scorer and he\u2019s always going to be around the box. He\u2019s a terrific forward and that\u2019s why we have him. He\u2019s really coming into his own here. I think he\u2019s getting a lot more connections with Lee [Nguyen], with Teal [Bunbury] and myself and guys pushing forward. You can see him. We\u2019re finding him in good spots, he\u2019s putting himself in good spots and he\u2019s finishing chances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Half an hour later, Kamara would set up the second goal after getting the ball from Nguyen in the left side of the box. This time Kamara attempted to slip a pass through to Rowe and saw his cross redirected in by Wil Trapp for an own goal with Rowe challenging.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously when you play against your former team there is going to be motivation because you know them and everyone knows what happened to have us get him,\u201d said Revolution head coach Jay Heaps. \u201cBut there was a lot more at stake than that. I think this week we were challenging the guys for their own performance and starting the game the right way and having that mentality. I think a lot of our focus was on us and it really wasn\u2019t on Columbus and Kei, it was just about us getting out there and doing the best we could do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The star forward then had his best chance of the match to get a goal against his former side. Teal Bunbury rounded Crew \u2018keeper Steve Clark and sent a searching pass through the box towards Kamara. The Revolution striker got on the end of it, but saw two shots blocked by former New England defender Michael Parkhurst, with the second then clanging off the crossbar after the block.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t lie, as forward I want to score and playing against your old team you want to score,\u201d said Kamara. \u201cWhen I had that one chance that I hit, got blocked, hit, got blocked and went off the crossbar, then I said \u2018forget it, let\u2019s just try to get this win.\u2019 I tried to forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kamara\u2019s chances weren\u2019t done yet, however, as he finally got the goal he craved in the 71st<\/sup> minute after the Crew defense failed to deal with a cross and two defenders collided, leaving the ball at Kamara\u2019s feet where he finished from close range.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to score a goal at home – they gave me a Happy Meal, I have to eat it,\u201d said Kamara, referencing the relative easiness of his goal. \u201cThat was great. Tony [Tchani] kept telling me that and I said, \u2018yeah, if you give somebody a Happy Meal, if you can\u2019t finish it, you\u2019re not worth a Happy Meal\u2019, and to me I love that. For that to be my first goal here in front of this crowd, that was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The performance is what the Revolution expected from Kamara when they traded for the player that had scored 22 goals in MLS last season. Now the team will look for more of the same when they return to action with a trip to Real Salt Lake next Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he was awesome tonight,\u201d said Heaps. \u201cWhen [Kamara] works hard and when Lee [Nguyen] works hard everyone else works a little harder because they know those are our key main attacking players and the way they closed down tonight, the way they pressured and the way they were involved in the attack, that\u2019s two way playing for us. We ask a lot of [Kamara]\u2026 he\u2019s played a lot of minutes lately and hasn\u2019t even batted an eye\u2026 He was perfect tonight in terms of what he did defensively for us and offensively I was glad that he got that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kamara scores once, sets up two other goals in Revs 3-1 win over his former team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[65,891,558,888,892],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/kamarateamcelebration.jpg?fit=600%2C415","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43380"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43382,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43380\/revisions\/43382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}