MLS offseason notebook: Breaking down Ola Kamara’s place for the Galaxy

We highlight the MLS SuperDraft’s top storylines and analyze the trade that sent Ola Kamara from Columbus to Los Angeles.

MLS preseason is here! Teams are reporting for training and non-competitive games that will begin in the next week. SuperDraft selections and recent trade subjects will integrate into their clubs while we count down the days until the regular season reprieves us of the quiet and bizarre preseason.

If you tune into the online streams, you’ll see teams in practice uniforms, random trialists (last year it was Freddy Adu!) and some messy, low-quality soccer games. The broadcasts will be the among the worst you’ll ever see: commentators who mispronounce names, show little knowledge of what’s going on and generally are hard to listen to; the lighting is weirdly bad; and the camerawork is all over the place, occasionally sticking to a player for no apparent reason and missing an important play. Unless a supporters group makes the trip, the attendances will average like three or four people.

Complaints aside, you won’t get a whole lot of good team analysis from those games. But it’s MLS soccer!

This week’s offseason notebook runs through the draft and its implications, then looks at the Ola Kamara-to-LA trade, dissecting Kamara’s fit with the Galaxy. Let’s go:

SuperDraft trade rundown

Be wary of devaluing the MLS SuperDraft. The argument that it’s slowly being phased out by academies and Homegrown signings is not far from the truth, but as long as athletic kids want to go to college and get a discount by playing sports (which is always), there will be, to some extent, a legitimate tunnel for pro teams to comb through.

In a league where margins are tight and parity is fierce, every method of player acquisition is important. Just ask league-best Toronto FC, who started college products such as Alex Bono and Nick Hagglund in their run to the treble, or the ever-ambitious Atlanta United, whose Julian Gressel (the former Providence star) won Rookie of the Year.

This is in addition to thriving Homegrown systems and youth-oriented signings form abroad, which both TFC and Atlanta are using well. A league that features Gressel playing alongside Ezequiel Barco is a good league.

It’s also important to note that the draft has produced generational talents in the recent past. Andre Blake, No. 1 overall in 2014 out of UConn, is arguably the best goalkeeper on the continent. Cyle Larin, first in 2015, is currently in the middle of a lawyer-filled push-and-pull between Orlando City and Besiktas and has been an in-demand commodity across the pond for months. Jack Harrison, No. 4 in 2016, is just about to be sold to Stoke for millions.

This year’s class probably does not feature one of those, but there were plenty of talents available, some of which will play an important role for their clubs. Trades were flying and allocation money was transferring, so we’re here to run down all of what happened. 

LAFC trade up for the No. 3 pick

After selecting LB/CB/CM tweener and passing specialist Joao Moutinho with the first overall pick, LAFC sent $100,000 of Targeted Allocation Money and $100,000 of GAM to D.C. United for the third pick, which they used on right-back Tristan Blackmon.

This was a good trade for LA — that pick should have been worth more, as shown by the haul that Montreal got for the fourth — but a curious selection. Blackmon probably would have fallen, and LAFC already have two starting-caliber right-backs in Steven Beitashour and Omar Gaber.

FC Dallas trade up for the No. 4

FCD, still reeling from their 2017 fall from on-field grace, haven’t had an especially active offseason in terms of player acquisition. They did, however, look to the draft as a method of improving their once-great roster. They sent $200,000 of GAM to the Impact (GAM is considered to be worth more than TAM, which is why Montreal’s cash is more valuable than D.C.’s) and took Ghanaian winger Francis Atuahene.

With their natural No. 11 selection, Oscar Pareja doubled down on pacey Right to Dream products and picked up Ema Twumasi, a not-too-dissimilar player to Atuahene. Twumasi and Atuahene will compete with and potentially replace wingers Michael Barrios (rumored to be on the transfer list) and Roland Lamah (unproductive in 2017).

Chicago and Minnesota dominate the rest of the first round

Jon Bakero, a second forward and creative attacking talent, surprisingly fell to No. 5. The Chicago Fire were mere hours from parting with star attacker David Accam and already needed an advanced attacker, so they sent a haul to Minnesota United for the pick.

$100,000 of TAM, $75,000 of GAM, the Fire’s No. 15 selection, and goalkeeper Matt Lampson went to the Loons as the Fire got their man in Bakero. They reimbursed themselves (making a considerable profit) with the Accam trade — read about the swap in-depth here.

Minnesota, wheeling and dealing, then sent $150,000 of TAM for Montreal’s No. 7 pick, which they used on forward Mason Toye, and they would go on to trade for Toronto FC’s No. 23 choice (which they used on Carter Manley). With the No. 15 pick they got from Chicago, they made the pick everyone thought they would in the top five: athletic center-back Wyatt Omsberg, considered a high-ceiling player at a position the Loons desperately need.

The Fire, not to be outdone, flipped $85,000 of the GAM they got for Accam to Real Salt Lake for the No. 10 spot, where they poached backup defensive midfielder Mo Adams.

Good draft for both parties.

Next: The best under-20 player on every MLS team

How Ola fits in LA

Continuing the offseason trend of MLS teams sending across large amounts of allocation money for stars, Columbus striker Ola Kamara was dealt to the LA Galaxy in exchange for Gyasi Zardes and $400,000 of TAM, plus another $100,000 of TAM if Kamara scores 12 goals. Ola, a Norwegian in the process of acquiring a green card to qualify as a domestic player, was reported to have asked for a trade earlier this month.

The Galaxy, coming off a last-place disaster, are officially good. We discussed this a couple weeks ago after they signed Perry Kitchen and we can confirm it now they’ve found the top-tier goalscorer they’ve desired since Robbie Keane left. This is the day 1 starting lineup, with No. 2 draft pick Tomas Hilliard-Arce also available in central defense:

Getting the overpaid Zardes, once the answer at striker, off the books at the same time they solidified the forward position is good business by Sigi Schmid and the front office.

Kamara is a pure scorer. In two MLS seasons, he netted 34 goals in 59 starts; by comparison, David Villa scored 45 in 64, Sebastian Giovinco scored 33 in 53, and Bradley Wright-Phillips scored 41 in 61. That puts him among MLS’s elite scorers.

He is most alike Wright-Phillips in playing style and how he scores those goals. Kamara is of modest build (6 feet, 181 pounds) and relies less on individual creativity and technical ability than clever off-ball movement and clinical finishing to put the ball in the net. He’s willing to drop deeper from his lone center forward position but not in a physical holdup way; he prefers to contribute what he can to possession buildup and then drift back to the space between the center-backs where he thrives.

Among MLS attackers with at least 15 appearances in 2017, Kamara was 18th in shots per game at 2.6, per WhoScored. That’s not a small amount, but other high-volume scorers attempted significantly more — the notoriously audacious Giovinco led the league with 5.1, Villa was second with 4.4 and Golden Boot winner Nemanja Nikolic wasn’t far behind at 3.5.

Even more telling was that Kamara attempted just 10 total shots from outside the box (including playoffs) over the entire season. Giovinco, in 10 less games, attempted 93.

Ninety-two percent of Kamara’s total shots came in the penalty area, and a further 15 percent of those came in the six-yard box. He takes quality shots and is one of the most effective finishers in the league.

The lack of flair and general activity on the ball (his touch percentage, per American Soccer Analysis, was just 4.2) is a positive for his efficiency in front of goal, but it takes away from what he can ultimately be on the field. Kamara can only thrive with constant service and creative, ball-dominant players behind him; he will never be the centerpiece of an attack, and every lineup with him up top has to rely on others to move the ball and assertively combine in the final third.

This isn’t to say he can’t pass — after all, he was playing for Gregg Berhalter — but while most other top lone strikers in MLS (BWP being the exception) have skill sets on the ball that define their team’s attack, Kamara’s strengths lie in movement and finishing. You’ll rarely see him receive the ball with his back to goal and send a player through space he opened, or clip a through-ball to a dashing teammate.

That is all fine and over-comable — you have to make tradeoffs — but he requires a more specific fit than others. Colorado, rolling with a 31-year-old Scandinavian at the No. 10 for like the ninth straight year, were rumored to be in the market for Kamara, which never made sense unless they were planning for him to start as a second forward next to a more traditional No. 9. He’s not a difference-maker by himself.

LA and their cast of attackers will (theoretically) be a good fit for him. Unheralded superstar Romain Alessandrini is a creative winger who puts the ball in the net and likes to cut inside (kind of like Justin Meram). Jonathan dos Santos can pass from central midfield with the best in the region. Giovani dos Santos, who’s likely going to start behind Kamara as a pseudo No. 10, is extremely talented.

This will work as long as GDS is all there and in rhythm, which he mostly wasn’t in a weird 2017 for him. He only scored six goals in 25 starts, three of which were penalties, and he never looked as good as he did in 2016, when he made the league best XI.

If Gio comes back, the Galaxy’s attack will be among the best in MLS. Columbus’s, led by Zardes, will be decidedly worse.

That’s a topic for another day.