OBETZ, Ohio – Columbus Crew SC’s Kei Kamara and Ethan Finlay lead MLS in goals and assists, respectively. But neither made it into the first round of AT&T MLS All-Star Game ballots in the Fan XI announced Monday.
“I guess I’m not a fan favorite,” Finlay said with a smile at Tuesday’s Crew SC training. “That’s the criteria for the fan voting yesterday. But it’s fine.”
Neither player seemed heartbroken about not making it Monday, but Kamara said he was “for sure,” surprised.
“For me, being tops of the league in goals and not being in there, it’s a shock obviously,” he said. “But my wife was more upset than I was. I was enjoying all the tweets and all the other things.”
Finlay was even less worried. He said if he’s not in Colorado July 29 he’s not even sure what he’ll be doing.
“I’m not going to lose any sleep over it,” he said. “In fact, depending on what’s on TV that night I might find something else to watch. I know my show Suits is on Wednesday nights. So if I’m not there, I’ll have plenty to do.”
Their head coach and sporting director Gregg Berhalter made it clear that he thinks of the fan voting as just one element of being an all-star.
“They’re all-stars; we know that,” he said. “The fan voting has always been an interesting way to do it. But if you look at the season, the body of work so far, those two are all-stars.”
The pair still have a chance to make it into the team if Rapids head coach Pablo Mastroeni, coach of this year's MLS All-Star team, chooses them.
Both Kamara and Finlay admitted it would be a nice piece of recognition to make it into the final 32-man team, but said it was far from their main motivation.
“I think the idea of it is great recognition of players who are having a good season halfway through the year,” Finlay said. “So it would be nice. It would be a great accolade and it would mean a lot, but I get enough validation from the players here and coaching staff here. I don’t need it from Pablo or the MLS All-Star team.”
And for Kamara, a selection – his first – would mean more for his newfound fatherhood than himself.
“It wouldn’t be anything for me,” he said. “It would mean that my baby is good luck. For it to be the year she’s born and I make the All-Star team, that’s what it would mean for me.”
If he doesn’t find himself making the team, Kamara says he’ll just be another player joking about the choices on Twitter.
“If it doesn’t happen, I know the caliber of how everything goes in the league,” he said. “It was shown by all the tweets from all the players yesterday. Everybody’s laughing about it.”
