Kamara can relax after 10th goal

Connor Maloney hustled to get to a deflection early in Crew SC’s 2-2 tie with Real Salt Lake last Saturday, flicking a pass into the center of the box, where forward Ola Kamara stuck out his left leg and scored the opening goal over goalkeeper Nick Rimando.

It was a rather easy goal for Kamara — he had plenty of time and space to produce a clean shot — but represented the end of a difficult stretch for the second-year Crew striker, who had sat on nine goals scored for more than a month.

Afterward, he said that 10 goals, a nice, clean number and a minor benchmark for strikers, was a milestone he had thought about.

“Last year, I got a penalty against Orlando and that took me over into double digits. (In 2017) took like three or four games. Sometimes you get stuck. I always want to get over to double digits and it’s hard to get over there,” Kamara said. “You kind of realize sometimes that it’s a thing. And then maybe you jinx it a little bit and you miss a chance.”

In four games between goals — Kamara’s longest scoreless stretch of 2017 — he put himself in position to score nearly every game. He misfired after a nice feed from Justin Meram in a win over Minnesota and got

Crew — GK Steffen; D Jimenez, Crognale, Abubakar, Mensah, Raitala; MF Artur, Trapp, Meram, Manneh; F Kamara; SJ — GK Bingham; D Jungwirth, Imperiale, Bernardez, Lima; MF Godoy, Salinas, Yueill, Qazaishvili; F Urena, Wondolowski

The Earthquakes are

good pace on a half-volley early in the Crew’s home win over Philadelphia, but shot right at keeper John McCarthy. In a road loss against the Union four 1-3-0 in their past four games, but 2-1-1 in their past four home games. … San Jose is 2-3-0 since Pickerington native Chris Leitch took over as coach.

Crew SC is 6-11-4 in 21 trips to San Jose in club history. … Federico Higuain (right knee sprain) and Harrison Afful (right thigh strain) are both listed as questionable. Higuain has not played since July 1.

San Jose is strong at home (6-1-4) but sits 19th in MLS with 24 goals. If Crew SC can find a way to get on the board and avoid mistakes on defense, it should achieve a positive result.

days later, he hit the crossbar on a good-looking chance.

But with two goals against Real Salt Lake, the 10-goal threshold was surpassed,

meaning there’s less of a mental burden on Kamara in the season’s most critical stretch.

“Luckily now I’m over it,” he said. “I can kind of try to continue to score goals.”

In addition to having to navigate the 10-goal hurdle, Kamara, 27, has been tasked with learning to move and create chances in a three-inthe-back system with which he hadn’t had much experience in 10 years of professional soccer.

Columbus has had slightly less possession time while playing with three in the back this season than with two center backs. It has been able to produce high-percentage chances on the counterattack with one fewer midfielder, but less possession time often means fewer chances.

“It’s a new style of play; a lot of teams are starting to play that formation and you have to develop and I think maybe that’s a good thing, too,” Kamara said. “I think you’ll see that maybe I get more scraps now. I got the one in Philly that hit the post. It’s just different types of chances. I have to be mentally prepared for those instead.”

Part of Kamara coming to grips with the formation change, too, is an understanding of why it happened. Crew SC has switched to three center backs in an attempt to concede fewer goals, not because of a lack of scoring.

Instead, the hope is for the attacking group to adapt to the new style. And coach and sporting director Gregg Berhalter said he’s not worried about his leading goal-scorer finding ways to do what he does best.