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Cooper sold to 1860 Munich

Kenny Cooper 3 (ISIphotos.com)  

Kenny Cooper is on his way back to Europe.

The former Manchester United reserve player has been sold by FC Dallas to German Bundesliga II club 1860 Munich. FC Dallas informed season ticket holders of the sale on Friday.

Cooper, 24, is coming off a Gold Cup that saw him score two goals for the U.S. national team and earn a place on the All-Gold Cup team. He scored 40 goals in 93 appearances for FC Dallas over the course of three and a half seasons.

Cooper had been linked with various British clubs in recent years, but FC Dallas turned down previous attempts to secure his services. With the current season all but over, and Cooper's contract set to expire after the 2010 season, FC Dallas decided to cash in, which will give the club more resources to work with in the winter as it looks to rebuild.

Is Bundesliga 2 a good fit for Cooper and a good landing spot for a player with aspirations of bigger things?

It's tough to say. If you look at the list of American players to play for 1860 Munich (Taylor Twellman, Josh Wolff, Gregg Berhalter, Steve Purdy), none of those players made a move upward. In fact, all four players wound up going to MLS after being with 1860.

Does that mean the same will happen to Cooper? Not necessarily, but he will be the exception to the rule of he does progress to a bigger league.

What do you think of Cooper going to 1860 Munich? Disappointed he's not going to a First Division club in Europe? Happy to see him move on? Think Germany is a good fit for him?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Being very familiar with 1860 Muenchen and Bayern Muenchen I can only congratulate Cooper for being in Muenchen. However I have the feeling that he would have been better off being drafted by the Bayern Muenchen 2nd team than 1860 Muenchen. 1860 Muenchen has had it ups and downs for the last four or 5 years. I forgot how many coaches they let go during those years, the player personell was not up to par and were unable to win even against the bottom level teams in the 2nd Bundesliga. However in the last year they seem to be getting some what better, but I seriously doubt for them to be good enough to advance, besides I question if Cooper will fit into the team. It will be interesting to see how the story will end.

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  2. @Brian Kenny
    “BTW – a blog like Soccer By Ives in 1988 was a total fantasy for soccer fans!! Don’t take it for granted.”
    Hah, I won’t (clearly)!

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  3. Wish he woulda went to a better club.

    However,

    Berhalter Twellman Wolf and Purdy didnt get better because they all had low ceilings. Outside of MLS they have always sucked and always will.

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  4. Cooper is about HALF as good as Conor Casey. I’m glad Bob Bradley was smart enough to realize that Cooper wasn’t even good enough to START for the USA c-team that got beat by Mexico.

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  5. Germans only 5’11 on average, Dutch nearly 6’1. Brits 5’10 and Spanish, Italians, Portuguese 5’8.

    So Kenny Cooper would be manhandling the Portuguese

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  6. “That is 9 USMNT starters playing in the first division in Europe. Wow.”

    Tha Duece,

    I would have added an exclamation point after “Wow”. I agree with your point. I am probably an ‘old timer’ on this board as I played my college ball in the mid-80s.

    I remember going to USMNT qualifiers and watching Bruce Murray start for the Nats! We have come a long way,…despite what Messrs. Trecker and Gardner say. I remember our U-20 team being almost exclusively amateurs.

    Slowly but surely,…the USMNT program is advancing (I would actually say that on the whole – top to bottom – no other national team program has advanced more that the USMNT,…maybe Croatia. Recall that in 1988,…we were a total doormat in CONCACAF).

    BTW – a blog like Soccer By Ives in 1988 was a total fantasy for soccer fans!! Don’t take it for granted.

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  7. Cooper’s lack of pace and inability/refusal to make himself into a target man will always be a detriment to him and it will be exposed even more in Germany.
    Hopefully he can learn to transform himself into that kinda Luca Toni style player. Germany will be a good place because the Germans are a lot bigger & taller on average than most other European nations so he’ll be dealing with some pretty monstrous centerbacks who’ll toughen him up or call him out quick.

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  8. I follow the Polish, Czech and Austrian league. Of course Austria doesn’t belong to Eastern Europe and Poland and the Czech Republic are geographically Central Europe as well…But you know sometimes I sum everything that was behind the Iron Curtain under “Eastern Europe”. I follow the Austrian league on TV and the others via internet streams. Unfortunately, the Polish league is currently in a very poor state. It is hard to describe – corruption is a serious problem over there. But I hope that the Euro 2012 will help the league in the middle term.

    The leagues in the former Yugoslavia are also pretty dead. Red Star Belgrad used to be quite a force in European club football. Now they are almost finished. It’s sad to see them now as I still remember the side which won the CL in 1991.

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  9. Ok so can someone explain why MLS won’t give the 10% of the transfer fee to the player? I’ve seen now two articles that reference moves to Rosenborg and Bristol City died becuase of it. MLS is doing many things right but it kills me on some others. This is one of those things. WOW!

    Did they stiff Jozy? Could they try and stiff LD. He might say take it just so he can go.

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  10. What other Eastern European leagues do you follow? Where do you follow the games at? My friend from Italy said that it used to be the Eastern European clubs showed up in the European cups and their kits were just trash, the pitches were horrid, and the quality of the clubs were laughable. He said there’s a huge difference now that the Iron Curtain is down. I’m always interested in knowing what’s going on in that part of the world since my father in law is an East German refugee.

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  11. With MLS owning all of the player contracts, Dallas will only get a porition of the transfer fee….somewhere in the neighborhood of $400K as the fee is said to ahve bene for just a bit over $1M.

    ________________________________________________

    Wrong. The league changed it up several years ago. The team gets two-thirds of the fee, while the league gets the rest.

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  12. Andy,

    yes I also enjoy the Russian PL (and I am into other Eastern European leagues as well – although none of them reaches the quality of the Russian league).

    And I am backing the Uefa coefficient indeed. Everyone who hears of it finds it absurd at first, but you have to remember that it is in place since about 50 years and although not many have ever heard of it, it has worked quite well.

    I think there must be a way to level the playing field. There are so many things in favour of bigger clubs/leagues (not only money) that there must also be a possibility to improve the status quo.

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  13. I enjoy the Russian league. Its a really fast paced game. Setanta’s been showing the Russian Premiership. Apart from only knowing a few players, not being able to read the Russian alphabet, and only ever hearing of 3 or 4 clubs, I’ve been enjoying the level of play.

    I actually don’t have many complaints about UEFA, I just thought it might have been a bit naive of me to think they would try to level the playing field a bit for smaller clubs. You seem to back this idea though. Its a good point about UEFA being a 50 member confederation.

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  14. Andy,

    When Hamburg wins against Danish minnows Randers in the 4th qualification round of the Uefa Cup it counts as much as Bremen winning against Inter Milan in the group stage of the CL. There are a variety of possible reasons. One of them might be that if the results in the Uefa cup counted less than the results in the CL, the status quo would never change. And keep in mind that the Uefa consists of 50 members and only a few of them get the chance to play in the CL…Some leagues won’t have any representatives left in European club competitions when the European top clubs have not yet participated. And don’t forget that on the other hand bigger leagues get numerous advantages over smaller ones. It is a very complicated mechanism (I think there are only a handful of fans here in Europe who understand it).

    But it is probably the best possible system despite its flaws. The recent ascendancy of the Russian league wouldn’t have been possible without it, either. The Portuguese league has shown better results in the CL as well, but can anyone really say, they didn’t deserve it. The Russian league looks relatively strong despite not achieving much in the CL…

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  15. Mentz,

    I don’t see it any different. Although, I would say that Bayern – in financial terms again – has become bigger than the Italian mega clubs (although Inter is probably the exception thereof)

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  16. PS-“the Bundesliga has caught up recently and is – in financial terms – in a better state than Serie A.”

    Not to mention, I think its a better attended league. You don’t usually see the empty seats in a Bundesliga game like you do in Serie A.

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  17. “More knowledgeable posters, how would you compare B2 to the Scandinavian leagues?”

    Man I can barely keep up w/ the leagues I do follow! I know absolutely nothing about the Scandinavian leagues other than it seems they like to get their mits on a lot of Americans. I’m curious to see an answer to this question as well!

    “the average Bundesliga team would beat the average Serie A team. From top to bottom you have a competitive league where in Italy you can see some really poor teams getting shat on week-in, week-out.

    I’ll take German football if you give me a choice…”

    Oh I agree completely. Its what I love about the Bundesliga. The lack of super teams makes it wonderful. Don’t get me wrong, I love the EPL, but I love the fact that a team like Wolfsburg can come up and win the league.

    “The Uefa-Cup and not the CL is the key. A victory in the Uefa Cup counts as much as a victory in the CL. It sounds strange but that’s the way the Uefa coefficient, which determines the CL spots, works.”

    Yeah I don’t get it…but whatever. Any insight as to why UEFA puts so much stock into winning the UEFA Cup?

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  18. FC Dallas is a misnomer, they should change the name to FC Frisco. It was Frisco which shelled out money for the new “Soccer-specific” stadium which usually turns out to have Pointyball style line markings in the Fall…… Unfortunately, when they moved from the Cotton Bowl, they forgot to take the majority of the Dallas fans with them. And the FO has done a horrible job of marketing the team to the Friscans and other nearby folks.

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  19. “Drew ROC: Cooper is also like Conor Casey in that their top-end speed is pretty negligible.

    Cooper is technically skilled, w/a great first touch by MLS standards, but he is just sooooooooooooooooo slow. He’s not gonna get any faster, so he needs to learn to use the one advantage he’s got that can’t be taught: his height.

    I hope his German coach flat-out says, “Kenny, you won’t see the pitch unless you start playing like you’re 6’3.”

    I hope this move works out for Cooper. He’s not going to get any better in MLS, and it’s a shame if someone with his combination of height and touch doesn’t maximize his potential. Josh”

    ____________________________________________

    HokieFutbol, CapeCodFutbol, Josh,

    I think you are missing the point about his height and size. Other than the fact they keep people from pushing him around so easily (see Freddy Adu) they are more or less irrelevant to his game. Whatever the physical attributes, the man is what the English call a goal poacher. He is fearless, has a good first touch, seems to be able to get his shots more or less on target, appears always be looking to shoot no matter how slim the chances are. If he was an NBA player you would say he shoots with no conscience. If you think he shoots too much, well that is what goal poachers are supposed to do. They are all “selfish”.

    Guys like him hang around in front of goal and get some part of their body on the half to quarter chances. He gets to the awkward balls that come in at odd angles; usually somewhere between your shoulder and your knees where you don’t know whether you should head or volley the ball.

    The template for him would be Giorgio Chinaglia of Lazio, Italy and the late, lamented Cosmos. Anyone who scores at the rate he does is worth a look but coaches tend to distrust players like him because, usually, they only score goals and most coaches, like you guys, expect more from someone that looks like him. If the Germans did what you say they should, they would be missing the point. There is no other US forward like him in the player pool at the moment but I don’t see him becoming a regular starter under Bradley’s current system. Cooper is something of a luxury in a system that asks him to do things he is not really good at. So, second half sub when you need a goal is his role for now and the foreseeable future.

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  20. Andy,

    The Uefa-Cup and not the CL is the key. A victory in the Uefa Cup counts as much as a victory in the CL. It sounds strange but that’s the way the Uefa coefficient, which determines the CL spots, works. And the PL surpassed the Bundesliga in 2000/01, the year Bayern won the CL, because of its results in the Uefa Cup. The next season Leverkusen reached the CL final but the German TV contract went bust with severe impact on German clubs, but as a consequence of the World Cup, new stadiums and massive sponsorship deals, the Bundesliga has caught up recently and is – in financial terms – in a better state than Serie A.

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  21. If you consistently watch both the Bundesliga and Serie A you can see the difference. Obviously the style of play is much different, but what seperates on from the other is that Italy has a couple mega teams while Germany only has Bayern as a super team.

    That said, the average Bundesliga team would beat the average Serie A team. From top to bottom you have a competitive league where in Italy you can see some really poor teams getting shat on week-in, week-out.

    I’ll take German football if you give me a choice…

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  22. As a huge 1860 fan, I just became a fan of Kenny Cooper. Lets hope he can perform in Munich and help my boys move up to the Bundesliga. Overall I think this is a great move for Cooper and for 1860.

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  23. I think this is great. I have never thought he was the answer for the MNT but if he can work his way into Casey’s spot that’s great, and I’m glad for him to get paid. Best case scenario–lighting it up in a promotion season–is very likely; that’s all can you ask for in a new opportunity.

    More knowledgeable posters, how would you compare B2 to the Scandinavian leagues?

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  24. I don’t want to undersell the Bundesliga nor am I one of those, “MLS can compete with the top leagues in Europe!” kind of guys. However, I’m fairly certain there are a handfull of teams in MLS who could go head to head with a team like Wolfburg. I agree, German teams do fairly well in Europe (although there is a huge difference between the quality in the Champion’s League and the UEFA Cup…at least once it starts getting down to the knock out rounds). The major difference between a Bundesliga club and a MLS club is the type of competition that club gets on a regular basis. That and money.

    That being said, I don’t mean to make it sound like any club in MLS could compete in the Bundesliga, though I’m sure there are some clubs even in Bundesliga 1 who would struggle in MLS (like I said, my wife’s family is from Rostock….the way FC Hansa played 2 years ago, I know this is fact!) They just wouldn’t get relegated hah!

    I do find it a bit odd that Serie A is losing their 4th spot to the Bundesliga. The Germans haven’t done much in the Champion’s League over the past few years. I can’t see 4 German clubs really being that effective. We shall see. I always have a secret yearning to see the Germans succeed in the CL.

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  25. @Sublicon

    Great point about the snobbery that follows the EPL, La Liga and the Bundesliga. Most people are not ready to realize that the tops teams from those leagues generally do not develop talent….they buy it.

    By someone claiming that they wish a young player would go to the EPL (such as Freddy or Jozy) would suggest that they are a finished product or close to it. Which is not the case with either example. So that big league, big team move is just wishful thinking that the player has arrived and is ready for the big time.

    Meanwhile the rest of Europe and its coaches do all the development work only to lose that player once the big boys pull out the wallet.

    Landon is the only American player at this point left in the MLS that requires a big league move. The rest would be well served to play in Belgium, Holland, Greece, Sweden, Denmark, Russia or Turkey.

    Plus I don’t like that the feeling is that if you need to learn technique, go to Spain. Toughness, go to England. (Is someone going to try to tell me Arsenal is a tough team and not a finesse one?) etc etc… All leagues have tough teams and all leagues have technical ones. It depends on what the coach is building. If this weren’t true, then every player that needed to get tough would just need to go to Scotland and basically play Rugby on a soccer field.

    The regional differences that I see have more to do with attitude. Spain likes attacking soccer. England likes effort. Holland likes total football. Italy appreciates results. (pretty or ugly) Brazil wants everything to look like a dance. Germany wants an efficient team.

    Each will teach you what foot to use and when as well as ask you to tackle man and ball.

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  26. Its obvious that he needed to move, I think MLS developed him as much as they could. I don’t know if 1860 Munich is the greatest spot for him, even though Germany is a good fit for him in terms of playing style (living in Munich isn’t bad either). Hopefully he PLAYS and develops further.

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  27. “I don’t know if this is a good move or not. I’m not so sure that MLS is a less quality league than Bundesliga 1. I watch a lot of German soccer (my wife’s family is from Rostock) and really apart from FC Bayern and a few lucky streaks from Schalke and Stuttgart, the level of play isn’t really that spectacular.”

    Andy,

    generally speaking, the way Germans and Americans play soccer is indeed similar as IMO the mentalities of Germans and Americans are similar – and that is reflected in the style of play. But I think you are slightly underrating the Bundesliga which is just about to get a 4th CL spot from Serie A. Werder has beaten Inter in the CL and kicked out AC Milan/Udinese to reach the Uefa Cup final last year and only finished 10th in the league. Hamburg threw Manchester City and Galatasaray out of the same competition. Wolfsburg and Hoffenheim have played some spectacular football in the Bundesliga last season.

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  28. @ThaDeuce,

    Actually, they interviewed Gulati a couple of days ago and he said that Jones and Castillo will be ready for selection until October ( or something like that). Let me find the interview.

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  29. People always say the same crap every time some American player goes somewhere…”Gee, I would’ve liked to see him in England.” “Gee, I would’ve liked to see him in Spain.” “Gee, I would’ve liked to see him in Germany.”

    Tell us WHY…WHY do you wish that? Because it’s the only league you watch on television? Why is one a better move than the other? Explain yourselves. “Because it’s a more prestigious league” isn’t a good answer.

    Typically, I get annoyed by these statements, especially when it concerns an “okay” player who moves to Denmark or Sweden or something, players who didn’t have a chance moving anywhere else.

    As far as Cooper is concerned, and given 1860’s history with American players, I think this is a lazy ass move. I hope he’s getting paid well, that’s all I’ll say. I hope 1860 isn’t going to chew him up and spit him out the way they did with the others. If none of those things happen, then I think it’s a good move. If they do and he comes back, it’s a bust.

    Cooper is too good a player to go that route. I mean, take a look at EJ…he has the chance to redeem himself this season if Hodgson hangs on to him, but I think more highly of Cooper than I do EJ at the moment. That could change, but…I guess we’ll see.

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  30. is fc dallas going to move to another city?

    Posted by: joe k | July 31, 2009 at 11:15 AM

    I heard that New York is looking for a soccer team. Pretty big city without any team except an amateur pub team.

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  31. Good for him. Cooper didn’t complain when his transfer request to England and Denmark was refused last year. Considering that he would have seen about a 1000% increase in pay, that is astounding.

    Compare that to Basketball or Baseball players who claim to be “insulted” when their current team only offers them $12 Mill per year for four years while another offer $15 Mill per year for five years.

    Hope is works out for him. I think he’s first division talent but we’ll see where he goes from there.

    Not sure what happened to Dallas. A year or two ago, people were talking about their incredible depth and ability to pluck young players from the national team.

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  32. Cooper should be a very good player; However, he is one of the biggest ballhogs I’ve ever seen play professionally. Even being a forward doesn’t justify only passing as a last resort…

    The fact that he is so highly regarded, despite his greedy tendancies on the field, is a testament to the type of talent that he has…

    I really hope that the Germans can get it through his head that he is not playing the game the way he should. If he changes his mental approach, he could be nasty

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  33. MLS cant allow FC Dallas to move. Dallas shelled out the dough for a new stadium and by moving them MLS would set a precedence for other cash strapped cities to use against building a soccer specific stadium. I think FC Dallas moves only when the league reaches say 22 teams and expansion doesn’t make sense anymore but relocation does.

    For Bud. 2- probably on average it is better than MLS but def. not 5 times. Our top players could easily play over there and our four best teams would probably finish middle of the pack. What separates us from Bud. 2, Mexico, SPL. etc. is all MLS teams lack depth where these leagues typically have a roster full of talent where we have 15 guys with talent and 5 or 6 guys just scraping by.

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  34. Cooper will be a star for them. A good club with great history. But it’s struggling in the Bundesliga and looking for a MLS star to help them. If he can grab at least 10goals a season, he’s doing well.

    But this is his ticket to the World Cup

    Reply

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