COLUMBUS, Ohio – Kei Kamara is one of the happiest men in Columbus.
No wonder, considering Crew SC announced Wednesday that the club had made Kamara only the fourth Designated Player in team history.
The deal marked the end of a tumultuous month for the club and striker. A Washington Post article Jan. 25 made the issue of Kamara wanting an improved deal public, and both Kamara and head coach/sporting director Gregg Berhalter have made references to the negotiations since.
With a huge smile on his face Wednesday at training, Kamara said he’s thrilled to have a deal in place.
“It feels good, obviously, to finally get a deal done,” he said. “I’m really happy, and I appreciate the loyalty from the coaching staff and the ownership group to really reward me for what I’ve done. And it’s not just about what I did here last year, but the past 10 or 11 years I’ve been playing this game in MLS.”
Berhalter was more nonchalant about the reported contract dispute.
He said it wasn’t “much of an issue,” and downplayed the idea that there was ever a chance Kamara would leave. Instead, the Crew SC boss focused on the reward the deal represents.
“This, in my eyes, is one of the success stories of MLS,” he said. “[Kamara is] a guy who’s worked his way up and has earned this pay increase and has earned this designation. He means a lot to this league in general, and he had one of the best goal-scoring seasons in MLS history.”
After scoring 26 goals in all competitions last season, Kamara will be hard pressed to duplicate his 2015 production. Having played largely on the wing in MLS before coming back to Columbus last year, he had never scored more than 11 goals in a season before.
Can he produce this season like he did in 2015? Berhalter is optimistic.
“That’s the question everybody is going to be asking,” he said. “What we do as a coaching staff is look at the trends. You look at how he’s been performing, you look at his health, you look at how we play, and there’s no reason to believe he can’t.”
Kamara says he knows that’s a question he’ll be getting as well.
Known as a man who can squeeze motivation out of most situations, the Sierra Leone native says he doesn’t need to prove himself to anyone.
“For me, my motivation has always been playing,” he said. “I want to be at my best, and I feel like I’m at the top of my career at the moment, and I just want to keep that going. I don’t want to prove anybody wrong. I don’t want to prove…I deserve it or anything. I just want to keep doing what I was doing last year.”
After a month or more of contract negotiations, Kamara and Berhalter say their relationship is as good as ever.
“We appreciate him and hopefully he appreciates the organization,” Berhalter says. “My sense is that he does. I think in the end it will be [positive]. Any time you’re that close and there’s that much communication between a coach and a player, you become closer.”
Perhaps most importantly, Kamara – settled in Columbus with a wife, baby girl and dog – says he’s happy.
“But I’m always happy when I’m playing this game,” he said with a smile. “It’s not all about this news coming out now. For me, it’s a joy. It’s something I’ve been working on from the first day I got drafted, the first day I came to America and said, ‘I want to play in MLS.’”
