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It might be time to put at least one narrative to bed after it was announced that the Seattle Sounders have sent Adam Moffat to FC Dallas in exchange for the rights to Kenny Cooper and an undisclosed amount of allocation money on Friday. After the Sounders had acquired Chad Marshall in a trade on Thursday, many were openly wondering if head coach Sigi Schmid was simply trying to reassemble the Columbus Crew team with whom he won a double in 2008.
The trade of Moffat should end that speculation.
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The Sounders had only recently acquired Moffat, picking him up in a trade with the Houston Dynamo in September. That deal cost them Servando Carrasco and a second-round SuperDraft pick. Now, they've effectively flipped Moffat for a 29-year-old forward who has scored 72 goals in 188 MLS appearances. Cooper has twice scored 18 goals in a season, most recently doing that in 2012.
"Kenny is a proven goal scorer who is extremely active in the box," head coach Sigi Schmid said in a team release. "At 6'3, he is a big forward who creates matchup problems for opposing defenders."
All this might make you wonder why Cooper was available for such a relatively small sum? The main reason is that he's coming off a season in which he scored just six goals in 31 appearances and was paid nearly $350,000. He was reportedly due a significant raise, which is why FC Dallas declined his option and made him available in the Re-Entry Draft. It is expected that the Sounders will seek to renegotiate Cooper's contract down to a more palpable number.
Assuming Obafemi Martins returns, Cooper would seem to be a solid pairing with the much smaller and faster forward. It also suggests the Sounders will be keeping Clint Dempsey in the midfield.
