COLUMBUS, Ohio – With just four games left in the regular season, Kei Kamara is in the midst of chasing down some of MLS’s most impressive goal-scoring marks.
But when his Columbus Crew SC are visited by the Portland Timbers on Saturday (7:30 pm ET, MLS LIVE), he’ll have the chance to put his name at the very top of one of the league’s all-time charts.
With a goal against the Timbers, Kamara will have scored against 21 different MLS teams – the most of any player in the league’s history, per the Elias Sports Bureau.
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Kamara had no idea he was that close to the record, but said it made sense.
“I think about every team we’re playing and question, ‘Have I scored against this team before?’” he said. “So I really do think about it.”
At the moment, the Columbus striker is tied with two more active MLS players with goals against 20 teams. One is Chris Wondolowski, who drew level with Kamara last weekend with a goal against New York City FC, notching goals against both expansion teams in their first year.
The other? Kamara’s good friend, best man and fellow African striker Dominic Oduro, who also scored against both expansion sides this season but missed his chance to reach 21 teams in the Montreal Impact’s 1-0 loss to Seattle in July.
Kamara said he would be calling the Ghanaian after training to personally talk trash.
“It’s amazing,” Kamara said of his draw with Oduro. “That’s my best man, and it’s amazing that we’re making records together and we came into the league at the same time. So it’s pretty good.”
Kamara says he knew he hadn’t scored against Portland, but has only had two starts and one substitute appearance against the Timbers in their relatively short MLS history to notch his first.
With 21 goals already in 2015, Kamara doesn’t need any extra motivation to score this weekend. But he’ll be gunning for one record this weekend before he gets back to chasing the single-season scoring mark of 27. And if he succeeds, he hopes it’s not the last MLS team he scores against.
“It just shows that I’m part of this league and I’m here, I’m working hard and I’m enjoying it,” he said. “It’s an honor to say you’ve done that.
“But there are more teams coming in, so I hope I’m sticking around a bit longer so I can score on them.”
