If you have ever been to the Wizard’s training sessions at Swope Park, or watched interviews on backpost.net you can’t have failed to notice that Kei Kamara is a bit more than a live wire. He is genuinely a fun loving, affable guy who I have witnessed doing cart wheels through team pictures, and pelting Korede Aiyegbusi with pebbles while he was being interviewed. He brings a levity to proceedings that is welcome, and good for moral.

His big smile can often been seen on the field as well but despite the frivolity, Kamara wants to win, to score goals and to make things happen and nothing about his antics detracts from his goal to simply do well. He has almost infinite time for fans that approach him, time for interviews, and there is nothing surly about him, nobody has to push him to talk, to expand on ideas.

Summary. Talented forward. Great Attitude. Great Guy. Team Player. Fan Friendly.

Last weekend Kei missed a sitter. It was a special miss and the way the world works is that people will kick anybody when they are down. Kamara is more famous now for one miss than anything else he has done in his career and the world has taken notice. His name is all over the place, his video is on ESPN, in British newspapers, and at the same time there is no counter. None of these sources point out that the field was just drenched and it was slippery, or that these things happen – who hasn’t fallen before?

Just like the 70 yard goal David Beckham goal scored against Kansas City is regurgitated ad nauseum online, this miss is destined to never really go away and with the media being the way it is you can be sure that the spotlight will shine on Kei Kamara more heavily this weekend than it will on Edson Buddle or Landon Donovan.

It is not without a hint of irony that the stage is then further set by this weekends road game being played against Kamara’s last team Houston Dynamo and of course this is one of only three nationally televised games for the Wizard’s this season. That is a lot of pressure to place on the shoulders of one guy.

Anything approaching a miss this weekend will no doubt be pointed at by the media and smart alec wannabe soccer pundits that make up the blogosphere, but at some point people are overlooking one important fact.

He isn’t hiding from any of this.

His twitter feed is full of references to it. He held his hands up, referred to the incident as the “worst miss of my career”. He has talked about moving on, and quipped about making the MLS All Star team because of it.

It has to sting but Kei Kamara is going to be motivated by this and I for one am not betting against him. I am sure he will want to prove his detractors wrong and I am sure given time he will.

Sometimes when people get enough flack thrown their way they start to fight back and Kamara can and will score goals. The haters won’t go away but he can certainly help quiet them down. Two weeks earlier the Colorado Rapids engaged Kei in a physical encounter, he didn’t back down and gave as much back as he was given. He rose to that occasion and scored the winning goal. He will rise to this, and as unfair as it all seems, all of Kansas City is squarely behind him.

Kei Kamara is one of ours. Nothing is changing that. So while the world sniggers I just have this to say:

Show them what you can do Kei …. you show them.

Update: Narain Karthikeyan will not be attending the Wizards session. Flights are delayed into KC and he won’t make it in time.

As you probably (should) know Wizard’s training sessions are open which pretty well means you can walk inside and watch the guys being put through their paces by Peter Vermes.  It is generally a good way to get away from your desk for an hour or two. Indian Race car driver Narain Karthikeyan will be at Wizards training on Friday at 11am.   Practice typically starts at 10am is is worth going to if you are a fan, you get an inside edge that most other people do not simply by watching practice.

“Narain Karthikeyan – The first, and until recently only, F1 driver from India, and the first Indian to make driving a race car a fulltime profession. He is not a pioneer, but the pioneer for motorsports in India.

Karthikeyan is currently racing a part time schedule in the NASCAR Camping World Truck series. His next race will be the O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 on May 2 at Kansas Speedway.

Narain Karthikeyan became the first ever Indian-born driver to compete in a NASCAR Series. Karthikeyan debuted in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series on March 27 in the Kroger 250 at Martinsville (Virginia, USA) Speedway. Driving the No. 60 SafeAuto Chevrolet Silverado, Karthikeyan finished in 13^th place, a very good result considering that Martinsville Speedway is thought to be one of the toughest tracks on the circuit” — Snipped from the Wizard’s release.

Wizards Swope Park Training Facility – 6310 Lewis Road, Kansas City, MO

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If you follow the Kansas City Wizards in even the most casual manner you can not help but notice that the demographics of the Wizard’s fan base has changed somewhat remarkably over the last month or two.   The Kansas City Wizard’s have signed Indian forward Sunil Chhetri and low and behold the entire newsscape and culture of the Wizard’s in the web 2.0 world has changed about as quickly as you can shout ‘he hasn’t even completed a god damned fucking game yet, and the game he did start he looked like poo and got yanked out at half time’.

I can understand being excited, being the complete kiss ass Ryan Smith fan boy that I am I totally transformed into a Smitty cheerleader on BigSoccer on Facebook in person and whoever would listen and yet this is different.  For me.  We have doubled (at least?) the number of ‘fans’ we have on Facebook (because that little link click makes you a die hard) and almost every single post by the Wizards is flooded by these new followers with discussion about Chhetri and they are driving me completely insane.

I feel like the Wizard’s fan base has been invaded by this amorphous mob who don’t actually really give a damn about the Wizards but are here purely to support their boy.  Which is fine.  I guess.  I saw the guys in the Landon Donovan T-shirts this weekend.  But what about the rest of us?  That know that Kansas City is actually the name of a City, and that unlike Manchester City, Coventry City and Brechin City (first mention on an MLS blog?) the ‘City’ portion isn’t just appended to the end like United, Athletic or ….. Wizards.  People that are Wizard’s fans might also might want to absorb the fact that Kansas is a place roughly the same size as England and Scotland combined. It is not a town. It is a state just like Rajasthan is.

North America, include the states of Kansas and Missouri.  See the A?  That is Kansas City.

So what does this make me?  The non-Chhetri fan?  No .. I want him to succeed because we need a natural goal scorer like the desert needs the rain.  Does this make me some kind of anti-indian xenophobic racist asshole?  Not sure that is possible considering that I am actually half Indian and I do actually love India.  I just feel that the hyperbole glut is completely outweighing what it should be for a player who is entirely unproven at anything close to the MLS level.

I’m just bored of hearing about a player, that has yet to make his debut from a group of people that probably have not even bothered to pull out a map to see where Kansas, Kanses, Kensas, Kansa and Kansas City are.  Guess this is just the way it is going to be, and we can only hope that when Chhetri is gone we keep the new found fans.  I guess a reception like this doesn’t help much.

Closing thought from an overseas genius:

Sanamar Athokpam : V hav 2 make special shirtz 4 chhetri, diz cowdung doeznt knw it’ll nt fit wit him… Wen unfit tey r lukng awkward, rnt tey hav ne precise mind..?? Damn fellwz… Chhetri iz running wit shirtz going down to kneez, pantz to heelz… Hey!! Indianz make a brand new dresses 4 chhetri..

Yeah its kinda like that …

With all the noise regarding starters Ryan Smith, Stephane Auvrey and Jimmy Nielsen, and the rumpus over Sunil Chhetri it is easy to overlook a guy from the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park.  The manicured lawns and well to do demographics do not summon the imagination to flights of fancy and delusions of grandeur quite the way Ryan Smith’s story does.  He brings with him a little slice of Arsene Wenger, a hint of Arsenal.  We have Gallic flare and dreadlocks in Auvrey, and “The White Puma” Casino Jimmy Nielsen.  It is almost a Roy of the Rovers style comic book squad with players brought in from all over the globe and yet on Saturday night home town boy Matt Besler stood peerless above anybody else on the field.

Prior to the game, as the news that Jimmy Conrad was not included in the starting lineup filtered through the parking lot, it was reassuring to see that people were not questioning Besler but Colombian Pablo Escobar.  While both had solid games Besler really seemed a stand out as a player who is ready to fill big boots.  With Jimmy Conrad maybe approaching the end of his career it is reassuring to see that in a game where the attacking talent of Donovan and Buddle was talked about with trepidation that a defensive player should simply do his job effectively and efficiently enough to simply be a rock that opposition attacks broke upon.

The result was that the LA Galaxy looked fairly impotent going forward and it was no surprise that the game finished 0-0 on the balance of play given that the Wizards really did fail to carve out many chances that fell to the natural finishers of Wolff, Kamara, Arnaud or Smith.  The cleanest and clearest chance that came the Wizard’s way fell to Kei Kamara who managed to miss a chance that was such a sitter, that he probably would have scored it if he had been shot at the correct moment and fallen dead into the path of the ball.  Instead he contrived to slip, kick nothing but air, fall and hand ball the ball into the net from a range of about ….. an inch. Nightmare.

It happens and while The Sun newspaper and other pundits line up to take an equally easy (and cheap) shot at Kei the people who really should be concerned are his prior team Houston who will have to contend with a player who now feels he has something to prove.

The remainder of the first half was nondescript to say the least. In an effort to stifle the Galaxy attack it seemed that Escobar and Harrington played as traditional left and right back rather than marauding up the field. This cut off support for the oft triple covered Smith and the Wolff who was stranded on the right wing entirely without service or support. With the Wizard’s and Galaxy attacks both effectively shut down the ugly game continued in much the same pattern for the remainder of the game until Escobar and Kamara left the field of play. Escobar who suffered a minor concussion was replaced with Aaron Holbein, and Kamara interestingly with Diop.

The game destined to finish as a goalless draw for so long, finished with little to talk about in terms of incident. The Wizards did hold an edge in terms of possession and chances however the Galaxy defense managed to stifle much of these quickly and the chances often fell to players other than forwards. People might talk about the Wizard’s deserving to win again but it is goals that win games not possession, not effort, not even chances. In this light the Wizard’s have scored only one goal in their last three games and while the defense is stable if the Wizard’s are to progress then Peter Vermes is going to need to conjure up a strategy that will allow the the play makers on the team more freedom. I am convinced that in Galaxy and Seattle we have played two of the better teams and they and the Wizards have simply canceled each other out. Houston on the road next won’t be a breeze, but for once, and early I am calling a win for the Wizards.

Closing thought

While the Wizards are much improved, they are relatively simply to defend against at the moment. If the ability to simply stifle Smith shuts down the Kansas City offense almost entirely we need to conjure another threat up. We need to give defenses something else to worry about. Wolff deployed as a work horse isn’t going to scare anybody, Kamara is no winger, and we really lack a genuine goalscorer. If we are not going to score much, I might be more inclined to continue the education of Teal Bunbury by letting him have a run out as a sub rather than using Diop out of position.

The LA Galaxy game today at Community America Ballpark will be the fourth game Kansas City has played this season. After running wild on opening day against the hapless DC United, and beating the Colorado Rapids the Wizards finally lost to an extremely late goal on the road in Seattle. If you had thrown having six out of a possible nine points at the success starved Wizards fan base prior to the season it would probably been greedily accepted however given the good start hopes have been raised and so have expectations.

All of a sudden there are whispers amongst the fans, of this game today being must win. We have to win it to remain in contention for the Eastern Conference title. I could not agree less. Wins are of course good but winning against the best teams in MLS or any other league is not what wins you titles, they are the bonus points if you can get them. The silverware comes when you are consistent enough to beat the remaining 15 teams consistently. That is where your title challenge is founded, in picking up the points you absolutely should, and if you claim a Sounder or Galaxy scalp along the way you earn an edge.

Must win is beating DC United it seems, or you are dropping points to everybody else. Must win was beating last years Red Bulls and Wizards. Today is a test for sure, and if the Galaxy run riot on us then you have to question our ability to genuinely compete for the Supporters Shield however even in defeat if this game is as tight as last weekend’s against Seattle it only will serve to underscore the improvement we have witnessed.

Bear in mind, the Columbus Crew only earned 54% of the available points last season and won the Supporters Sheild.  If the Wizards pinch a draw today we are running at 58% and I’ll take it.

Key Battles for today

The real question mark over today’s game for me is Ryan Smith. He was fairly effectively dealt with by the Sounders and despite all the bitching over the way we lost the game we failed to score and our defense fell asleep at a crucial time. You cannot win goals without doing scoring, so if shutting down Smith effectively shuts down an offense spear headed by forwards who pose little threat without service we are in trouble. Little of this falls on Smith ‘s shoulders, but lands squarely at the center of midfield. Jewsbury, and Auvrey need to win the battle for midfield and Espinoza and Arnaud need to effectively feed Smith if he is to get enough possession to work his magic.

Josh Wolff needs to continue his impressive work. I appreciate people want to see forwards scoring goals but he is covering miles and miles while he plays harrying defenders, making runs and getting into areas where he attracts coverage. His work makes space and the expense of his strike rate and if he can keep it up he makes room for everybody else around him.

Landon Donovan. Probably the most accomplished player on the field and has little to prove to anybody. While Buddle seems to be scoring at will right now, his supply line is crucial. If we succumb to the hype and start double covering Buddle the Wizard’s will have big gaping holes that will be exploited, he is hot right now but not out of this world. If we can shut down Donovan, Buddle won’t achieve much. Easier said than done? Probably.