DALLAS, Texas - By now much of the FC Dallas community is familiar with the Bernie Kamungo story – the inspiring account of an out-of-nowhere prospect and former Tanzanian refugee who found a highly unconventional path into professional soccer.
But there is another, completely different “Bernie Kamungo story” developing. It’s a splendid one, too. This one is also about opportunism - but a different kind of opportunism. And it’s about someone coming through in the clutch, which is always a good story – but even better if that clutch performer wasn’t initially even considered an important roster piece in 2023.
Garrett Melcer of FC Dallas’ content team laid out the original Bernie Kamungo story. Here’s how Volume II of this inspirational tale is playing out:
Kamungo, discovered initially at a North Texas SC open tryout, has come to the rescue lately for an FC Dallas team that was desperate for someone to juice up the attack. He’s not just scoring goals, four of them across all competitions, but crushing the moment with important goals. There have been no “stat padders,” just a foursome of meaningful strikes, all of which contributed to wins or draws at a time when wins and draws were getting pretty scarce.
That’s an outstanding return for a young winger who debuted for FCD late in 2022 and was mostly seen as a developmental depth piece for 2023. A promising one, for sure, but a player who still had some catching up to do, having been exposed to high level soccer relatively late in life. He backslid a bit in preseason, and wasn’t making much progress through almost two months of league play.
But things started changing in mid-April, mostly about opportunities opening up around him. And talk about someone grabbing those chances and absolutely refusing to let go.
Against Real Salt Lake on April 15, the game level at 1-1, Kamungo came off the bench late as FCD struggled to assemble scoring chances. FCD was in danger of dropping points at home, having taken just three shots through 87 minutes. But his first MLS minutes of 2023 finished with a crowd-pleasing flourish, a smart run and clean 88th minute put-away from in close to secure the win.
Clearly the points in the 2-1 win were helpful, especially in subtracting a Western Conference rival’s ability to further gather points. But bagging that one had larger implications.
It came at a time when FCD manager Nico Estévez was establishing more trust in Kamungo, who previously wasn’t showing quite enough zip and zing in practices. Estévez is ever watchful on the training ground, keen to pick out any details that may reveal form, fitness, confidence, desire or any ingredient that can be the difference between game-day wins and losses.
Estévez had said just the day before that he was starting to see the energy and desire that Kamungo absolutely needed to demonstrate at training. Kamungo’s skill set just wasn’t sufficiently developed at this point, the manager said, so the young winger could only help the team if he attacked any opportunities on the field with bravery, industry and big bags full of “want-to.”
That critical strike against RSL helped validate Estévez’s growing trust.
Not long after that came the grim FCD injury run, as Estévez’s second season at Toyota Stadium was temporarily reduced to an exercise in patching together lineups. Suddenly Kamungo, not previously a big part of the 2023 plan, if we’re being honest, was being asked to provide badly needed offense. Specifically, he needed to supply goals and assists while FC Dallas missed six or sometimes seven starters to injury (mostly), suspension or national team duty.
And provide he has. On July 1 against league champs LAFC, with FCD desperate to snap a six-game winless streak, Kamungo provided the second half game-winner, slipping into a good spot near goal and pouncing on Nkosi Tafari redirection header.
A week after that Dallas traveled to Seattle, a luckless black hole in almost every previous FCD visit. Kamungo’s goal on a soaring header would ultimately allow his team to split the points and to feel pretty good about the outcome. (The “value add” here: it was Dallas’ final game before a break of almost a month in league play – a long time to sit and stare at a less satisfying result.)
A few days after that Jesus Ferreira spotted Kamungo’s late arriving run, laying a perfect pass for his teammate, who was calm and precise in firing just inside the back post. That was the breakthrough early goal against Charlotte in Leagues Cup, and would prove essential in the teams’ 2-2 draw at 90 minutes.
Even when he isn’t scoring, Kamungo is finding ways to make an impact. In FCD’s second Leagues Cup outing, Kamungo’s strong run out of midfield forced Necaxa defender Alán Montes into a tough choice. He chose wrong, drawing a red card for denial of an obvious scoring opportunity, and FCD had a man advantage for almost 80 minutes.
Now, as FC Dallas keeps removing names from the injury list (Sebastian Lletget, Paxton Pomykal, Paul Arriola, Ema Twumasi and others have all made recent returns), Kamungo is making it more difficult for FCD’s coaching staff to take him off the field.
At the very least, his ability to provide bottom line output will push FCD’s stable of wingers, Arriola, Alan Velasco, Jader Obrian and Eugene Ansah, to work harder in daily efforts to earn their minutes.
All at for a guy who wasn’t expected to make a big dent in 2023. That is a good story of remarkable opportunism.
