LONDON — Life feels pretty good to Eric Abidal and to Kei Kamara right now.

Abidal is a man whose career could have been behind him. He’s 33, has played in a World Cup final with France and won medals galore with Barcelona. But the best news anyone at Barça has had in the past week was when doctors told Abidal that he could work as hard as he wanted to in challenging for his place in the defense, a year after undergoing liver transplant surgery.

Speak to the greats around the Camp Nou, and they say that nothing lifts them more than the spirit Abidal is showing in his comeback.

Kamara, too, has a life story — if not yet a comparable soccer career — worth telling.

On Saturday, Kamara came off the bench to outjump one of the best headers of a ball in the English Premier League. He scored, then set up another goal, and Norwich City won its first league game since December.

Kamara surprised even himself. He ran like a boy toward the crowd. He danced a loose-limbed jig with teammate Sébastien Bassong. And when someone told him that thousands of his countrymen were watching in theaters throughout Sierra Leone, Kamara’s response came out in a deep American drawl.