In between, the 38-year-old striker from Sierra Leone squeezed in seasons playing for Norwich City in the Premier League (2012-13), Middlesbourgh in the Championship (2013-14) and HIFK in the Finnish first tier (2021).
With 134 goals, Kamara is the leading goal scorer among active MLS players and tied for third all time.
With his goal-scoring ability, you’d expect Kamara to be a legacy player, someone teams build around. But although he’s a fierce competitor, Kamara has also developed a reputation for testiness and selfishness, perhaps a reason for his vagabond status.
In 2016, the Columbus Crew suspended him for a postgame tirade toward a teammate.
“It’s weird,” he told reporters at the time. “I want to play, I want to win, I want to score goals. It’s weird to say I’m selfish when I’m a forward, because that’s just what we do.”
Off the field, Kamara has a reputation for his outreach efforts. In 2015, he earned the MLS’ Humanitarian of the Year award for his educational outreach efforts in his native Sierra Leone.
“I’m a happy kid,” he told Rolling Stone. “And if I’m happy all the time and I can make someone else happy, then I enjoy it.”
Kamara hopes to use his goal-scoring skill to make the Chicago Fire happy in 2023. Both are fixtures in MLS, but neither has won a league trophy in the past 10 years. The Fire has fallen on hard times recently.
Chicago, which hosts the Philadelphia Union on Saturday, is mired in the middle of a decade-long slump, with some of the poorest performances and home attendance in the league.
As smaller markets such as Nashville and Charlotte prove popular — and profitable — for MLS, the league may leave teams such as Chicago behind if it can’t meet similar benchmarks.
For Chicago, then, the goal is clear: win big and often, with an eye toward growing its presence in the Windy City.
For Kamara–now in his 18th professional season–helping Chicago achieve that goal could flip the narrative about his attitude.
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