Dons great Cooper passes away at 54
Neale Cooper, one of Aberdeen’s European Cup Winners’ Cup heroes, has died after being found outside his home, the club have confirmed.
Cooper, who was 54, was taken to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in the early hours of Sunday morning but lost his fight for life yesterday afternoon.
Aberdeen posted on their Twitter account: “The club is deeply shocked and saddened to hear that our legendary midfielder and Gothenburg Great, Neale Cooper has tragically passed away.”
Cooper was in Sir Alex Ferguson’s team which beat Real Madrid 2-1 in Gothenburg in May 1983 before overcoming Hamburg later that year to clinch the European Super Cup.
He also won two league winners’ medals following the Dons’ championship triumphs of 1984 and 1985, while he won the Scottish Cup four times and League Cup once. THE tears inside Kiev’s Olympic Stadium did not dribble only onto the already sodden shirts of those on the pitch following Liverpool’s 3-1 Champions League final defeat to Real Madrid.
Near the halfway line behind Jurgen Klopp’s dugout sat two family members that had travelled to Ukraine to watch Loris Karius. The sight of his mother staring into middle distance, looking away from the game while it was still going on as she held his sobbing girlfriend prompted Klopp’s wife Ulla to move a few rows and try to offer some reassurance.
At the end of the game, while Karius lay on the floor, the three women — connected by the desperation of it all — stood there, wrapped in each other’s arms.
Karius (24) and his family have been the subject of death threats after he made two errors, effectively costing Liverpool the game.
The Spanish side’s first goal came when Karim Benzema charged down an attempted throw by Karius, and the goalkeeper then allowed a tame longrange Gareth Bale shot to slip through his grasp for the third.
But Karius, who has not been selected by his native Germany for this summer’s World Cup in Russia, is a confident character and he is smart.
At Manchester City, where he spent several years of his youth, the coaches there — as well as some team-mates — were intrigued by his sense of place, which can translate either as a healthy arrogance to those who believe in you, or borderline delusion to those who do not.
Karius’ future will be decided by Klopp, who had decided late last autumn to give him the rest of the season to prove himself capable of seizing an opportunity that Simon Mignolet was not able to, despite the ridiculous number of chances that came his way.
Mignolet will leave Anfield over the next few months and it is likely that Danny Ward will follow him, the Welsh international who has not played a minute of first-team football since returning to Melwood from Huddersfield following a successful year in the Championship where he proved himself as a crucial member of a promotion-winning team.
Liverpool, then, have arrived at a junction where they might need to sign as many as three new goalkeepers in one summer.
There is a belief inside the club’s academy that Kamil Grabara, the Poland Under-17 international, could emerge but, as Karius has reminded, the goalkeeping position at a club the size of Liverpool is a role where expectations dictate that you are not really allowed to learn on the job.
If you are young, and Karius is by goalkeeping standards — he will be 25 next month — then you have to learn quickly to gain the trust of the Kop.
The influence of the crowd in relation to any goalkeeper’s progress cannot be ignored, as David James will testify.
Inside Kiev’s Boryspil Airport, the Liverpool supporters on Sunday morning in discussion about the events of the night before were sympathetic towards the emotional challenges that Karius will face, and yet the consensus was that he should not remain as the club’s No.1.
John W Henry had namechecked sporting director Mi- chael Edwards as being a major influence in Liverpool’s surge to the Champions League final during an interview last week.
While Edwards had always pushed for the signing of Mohamed Salah — and he has been justified in that judgment — he also suggested Karius in the course of the 2015/16 season, and this proposal received support from Klopp (right) ,whohad not signed a new first-choice goalkeeper since his time at Mainz.
At Borussia Dortmund, he inherited Roman Weidenfeller and it was a relationship that worked.
The question marks about Karius related to his career inside the German national team sys- tem, which has not progressed beyond one appearance at Under-21 level.
Like Klopp, Karius’ platform had been at Mainz following his departure from City in 2011 but, unlike Klopp, Karius did not have the benefit of another move before returning to England, and it is unlikely Klopp would have been ready for Anfield without his experience in Dortmund first.
At the start of Fenway Sports Group’s reign, there was a misconceived notion that Liverpool could over-pay in transfer fees for young players, give them lower wages, and it would somehow all work out, winning trophies.
It was a failed concept because, as it proved with Raheem Sterling — and Philippe Coutinho to some extent — the best young players are not willing to hang around to wait for those around them for a collective maturity to be reached.
Sadio Mane and Salah had bits to learn and things to prove when they signed in successive summers and each have contributed enormously towards pushing Liverpool on in a way that might not have been possible if they were a few years younger at the point of arrival.
Karius was 23 when he moved to Merseyside but, again, cliché sometimes meets reality in that important football matches have often been determined through history by goalkeepers that are much nearer their peak.
Even before the nightmare of Kiev, Karius’ future has been in the balance because Klopp is seeking improvement, whether or not whoever comes in arrives as first choice.
Though a move for Jack Butland was denied by Liverpool,