Whitecaps finally get Kamara

VANCOUVER — Kei Kamara turned up at the Columbus Crew’s practice facility in May 2016 convinced he was set to join the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Social media was buzzing with rumours the striker would be moved following an on-field spat and subsequent public comments directed at a teammate.

Kamara was right to believe a deal was in place, he just had the team wrong.

“I went into training thinking, ‘I just got traded to Vancouver,’ ” Kamara recalled Monday. “They told me I was going to New England Revolution. I was like, ‘Oh, I thought it was going to be Vancouver Whitecaps from all the Twitter stuff.”

After that false alarm, Kamara finally became a member of the Whitecaps 19 months later Sunday when the Major League Soccer club acquired him from New England for a pair of draft picks.

“I actually felt like [the 2016 trade] was closer than what just happened,” the 33-year-old said on a conference call Monday from his native Sierra Leone. “It’s a bit of a surprise.”

In snagging Kamara, Vancouver now has a powerful centre forward who should fit into head coach Carl Robinson’s setup that relies heavily on crosses and set pieces.

With 98 goals in 286 MLS appearances over 11 seasons, the Whitecaps will be the six-footthree, 190-pound Kamara’s seventh stop in North America after also playing for Norwich City and Middlesbrough in England.

“It’s all about feeding the striker,” said Kamara, who has added five goals in 12 playoff games. “I want that pressure on me.”

The Whitecaps will be looking to build on a 2018 season that saw them reach the Western Conference semifinal before bowing out to the Seattle Sounders in a twogame aggregate series where Vancouver registered just one tepid shot on target.

Kamara had a career-high 22 goals for Columbus in 2015 to help the Crew reach the MLS Cup final, and has scored a dozen times each of the last two seasons.