Kei Kamara: Roger Milla my inspiration for international return at 40

Kamara was born on 1 September 1984 in Kenema, Sierra Leone’s third-largest city.

He lived there until he was 16, experiencing first-hand the horrors of the country’s civil war in the 1990s before his family emigrated to the United States.

Having turned professional with MLS team Columbus Crew, he returned to the country of his birth in 2006.

“After I made that trip, that’s when I started falling back in love with football in Sierra Leone,” he recalled.

“Just to see how little we had. But people were still just out in the fields early in the morning, on the dusty, red dirt fields, playing, going for long runs.”

Despite having the option of playing for the USA, Kamara made the decision to accept an international call-up for Leone Stars debut in a World Cup qualifier against Equatorial Guinea in June 2008.

“I felt like I wanted to do this because I want to be able to inspire many other people that have love for Sierra Leone, that’s living overseas in the diaspora,” he said.

“It’s the best thing I did in my career, to pick up that call and represent Sierra Leone. It got me so close to the country, so close to the people.”