Thanks to the best season of his career, Kei Kamara is climbing the MLS record books.
With his 19th and 20th goals of the season in Saturday’s 2-1 win against the Philadelphia Union, the Columbus Crew SC striker not only mainted his spot atop the 2015 Golden Boot race, but he also jumped into the top 20 scorers in MLS history with 72 career regular-season goals.
“It wasn’t anything I was looking up to,” Kamara said, moments after his accomplishment was brought to his attention. “Obviously I want to score goals. Being in the history books is always special. And as a forward, when it’s something to do with goals, it shows I’ve been doing something good with my years in the league. So I’m happy I’m able to be in that category with those players.”
Regular-season goals 71 and 72 of Kamara’s career (he has 1 playoff goal, scored in 2008) allowed him to pass Eddie Johnson, Ronald Cerritos and Conor Casey on the list, drawing him level with Juan Pablo Angel at 19th-most goals in league history. Kamara is now fourth among active players, trailing Chris Wondolowski, Edson Buddle and Kenny Cooper.
Kamara still has a lot of goals between he and the best goalscorers in MLS history, but he’s happy to be climbing the ranks.
“When I look at it, I always try to compare myself to those guys,” he said. “I looked up to most of those guys who scored a lot of goals – [Jeff] Cunningham, [Dwayne] De Rosario, [Landon] Donovan – so it’s really good. Maybe not a lot of people would really know that about me; maybe they just see the other side of me and recognize the goals. But it’s really good to see (myself with those players).
“Personally, I see myself as one of the top goalscorers going forward. But at the same time, it’s not many goals. I still have a lot more to go to catch up to a lot of those guys.”
Even if he did not score another goal in 2015, another 20-goal season could place him within the top ten. He’s not thinking about those numbers just yet but says he’ll revisit them if he continues to succeed.
“I’m a goalscorer, and that’s what I want to do,” he said. “I guess when it gets closer to those milestones, then people start ringing in your head and you start seeing them. But if I have good seasons coming up in the next few years, I’ll be really happy. I’m obviously having a good season and scoring a lot of goals, so if I have more good seasons, that’s something we can talk about.”
Will those “good seasons” in the future come in MLS? That’s not something Kamara is willing to tie down just yet.
“I haven’t really thought about that,” he said. “I’m really happy to be back in the league and be back in Columbus and scoring goals. Really, I’m doing what I planned to do. I planned to come back and perform the way I’m performing at the moment, so I’m really happy about that. But I can’t close doors.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen next year or the year after that. I’m just here, and I’m going to keep doing well. I want to win something. If it’s the MLS Cup coming up and making a run for that, then that’s why I was really excited to come back.”
