Major League Soccer side CF Montreal announced the signing of Kei Kamara

Kei Kamara

HE IS BACK!!! Kei Kamara has made a return to the United States.

Major League Soccer side CF Montreal has on Friday 18 February 2022 announced the signing of Sierra Leonean forward Kei Kamara in a one-year contract with an option to extend to another year. Kei Kamara is the fifth highest goal scorer in Major League Soccer history scoring 130 goals and 47 assists.

“In the absence of several players with an attacking profile due to injury or illness, in particular, that of the young striker Ivy Brisma who had had a good training camp, we had to act and strengthen the squad,” said the sporting director of CF Montreal, Olivier Renard.

The 38-year-old has played for 15 seasons in Major League Soccer, with a total of 359 regular-season games, including 299 as a starter, and 27,117 minutes of play, scoring 130 goals and 47 assists. Being the fifth top scorer in MLS history, he is one of the top ten players in the league to have scored more than a century of goals.

After being Columbus Crew SC’s first choice (9Me overall) in the 2006 MLS SuperDraft, Kei Kamara played the 2006 and 2007 seasons with the Ohio club. He also played for San Jose Earthquakes and Houston Dynamo FC in 2008 and 2009, Sporting Kansas City from 2009 to 2013, Colombus Crew again in 2015 and 2016, New England Revolution in 2016 and 2017, Vancouver Whitecaps FC in 2018, Colorado Rapids in 2019 and 2020, then Minnesota United FC in 2020. He was very close to winning the MLS golden boot in the 2016/2017 season missing out to Giovani Dos Santos. 

During the winter of 2013, Kei Kamara was loaned to English Premier League club Norwich City, becoming the first Sierra Leonean to play and score in the English Premier League. He scored in a 2-1 win over Everton with one of the best headers the Premier League has ever seen. He later signed a contract with Middlesborough, scoring four goals in 25 games in the English second division championship. More recently, he returned to Europe with Finnish club HIFK last summer, where he scored five goals in 14 games, all as a starter.

On the international stage, Kei Kamara played 39 games for the Sierra Leone national team, from 2010 to 2022. He captained his national team to their first-ever African Cup of Nations appearance in 25 years! Kei Kamara took part in the just concluded Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon, taking part in all three group stage matches for his country against Algeria, Ivory Coast and Equatorial Guinea.

On June 12, 2021, Kei Kamara scored the only goal in a 1-0 win over Benin, securing Sierra Leone’s participation in the tournament for the first time since 1996.