Two big MLS trades ship scoring firepower to FC Dallas

Until this morning, you could track back through FC Dallas rosters of the last four seasons and count on one finger – yup, one bony ol’ finger – the number of genuine front-line strikers found hanging around the club in that time.

Now, FC Dallas Stadium is overflowing with them.

Almost too many, even!

The club wasted no time in turning a cool few million from last week’s Brek Shea transfer into talent flowing back into the FCD mix. Today the club announced trades that bring Kenny Cooper and Eric Hassli to Texas.

(Good details on the Eric Hassli trade are here; More on Cooper and the relevant data are here.)

In Dallas, they join Blas Perez, the one, actual top-flight striker to suit-up and boot-up for FC Dallas since – well, since Cooper left FC Dallas back in 2008 to try soccer overseas.

Hassli’s move to Dallas is all about Toronto clearing cap room. (We talked about that in yesterday’s post.) Dallas handed over a conditional second round pick in 2014, a pittance for a man who, just more than a year ago, stood as the DP centerpiece to Vancouver’s attack.

Cooper’s move is more difficult to untangle. As we pointed out a few days back, the list of 18-goal scorers in MLS over the last four years starts and stops at Cooper and Chris Wondolowski. Yes, some of Cooper’s success was about playing alongside Thierry Henry (pictured above, with Cooper), as brainy as he is talented. Still, 18 goals is 18 goals – a fact that seemed curiously lost on New York.

What the Red Bulls get in return is allocation money; FC Dallas has plenty at the moment thanks to the Shea transfer.

We’ll look more later at this trade from #RBNY’s side, at what manager Mike Petke might desire to round out his lineup. Presumably, someone whom Henry enjoys playing with a little more than he seemed to with Cooper.