Kamara is the oldest active player in MLS – eight days older than Atlanta United goalkeeper Brad Guzan. He turned 40 a few weeks before the Open Cup Final. But on the big night, as a sub and putting a shine on the showpiece, he was young. He was fast. And alive to the opportunities.
“To be on the same scoresheet in a Cup Final with Giroud,” he smiled and shook his head, referring to his new teammate and World Cup winner Olivier Giroud. “It’s amazing.”
The Long Road to America
Special. Amazing. These are words you’ll hear a lot if you sit down with Kamara and chat. His smile, the megawatt kind, is custom-made for a town like LA, where he couldn’t wait to return and play for a swansong of his unique and prolific career.
But let’s mark it here. There’s no reason for Kamara to smile as big as he does. With such openness. A welcoming kind of abandon. While his home is LA, there’s another one farther back. And there’s an ache in his voice when he talks about it.
Born in Kenema, Sierra Leone, Kamara came of age in the heart of a brutal 11-year Civil War. He witnessed executions when his home city was infiltrated early by rebels. “You woke up in the morning and there were dead bodies on the street, vultures eating their flesh.”
Soccer was the escape. When the shooting stopped, Kamara and his friends cleared a space in the streets and played. “We just kicked an old ball around,” he said, a warmth for his youth in spite of the horrors endured. “There was no league. No goals. It wasn’t organized. The field was wherever you made it. It was just fun, and we played until the sun went down or the shooting started.”
It was in LA, where he came after hiding in the jungle, and two years more in a refugee camp in Gambia, where he learned about the organized game. He plowed the usual route for a talented youngster: youth soccer, high school varsity and a star-turn at nearby Cal State Dominguez Hills. College ball lasted only two years because, when you score 31 goals in 47 games, you’re on your way somewhere up the ladder.
