Cobi N'Gai Jones (born June 16, 1970) is an American former professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

player and commentator. He is an analyst for

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Cana ...

club

LA Galaxy LA Galaxy, also known as the Los Angeles Galaxy, are an American professional soccer club based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Galaxy competes in Major League Soccer (MLS), as a member of the Western Conference. The club began p ...

on Time Warner Cable SportsNet. He can also be seen on Fox Sports, BeIN Sports, the

Pac-12 Network The Pac-12 Network (P12N; also sometimes referred to as Pac-12 Networks) is an American sports-oriented digital cable and satellite television network owned by the Pac-12 Conference. The network's studio and production facilities are headquarter ...

, and as the host of the Totally Football Show: American Edition. As a player, Jones was a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

from 1994 until 2007, starting his career in England with

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

club

Coventry City Coventry City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Coventry, West Midlands, England. The team currently compete in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. The club is nicknamed t ...

, before playing for Brazilian side Vasco da Gama. He is one of a significant group of American national team stars who returned from overseas to aid the then new Major League Soccer in 1996, beginning an 11-year spell with the Los Angeles Galaxy. Jones is the all-time leader in caps for the United States national team and a member of the

National Soccer Hall of Fame The National Soccer Hall of Fame is a private, non-profit institution established in 1979 and currently located in Toyota Stadium (Texas), Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The Hall of Fame honors Association football, soccer ...

. Following retirement, Jones served as an assistant coach with the LA Galaxy for two seasons.

Youth

Jones grew up in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...

. He played soccer with AYSO starting at age 5 in Westlake Village, California. After graduating from Westlake High School, Jones emerged as a talented player in

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...

, making the

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

soccer team as a non-scholarship player, ultimately becoming one of its most successful soccer-playing graduates. While attending UCLA, Jones was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha, an international fraternity.

Club career

After playing in the 1994 World Cup held in the United States, Jones signed with English team

of the

, where he spent one season. Jones trained with a German club

1. FC Köln 1. Fußball-Club Köln 01/07 e. V., commonly known as simply FC Köln () or FC Cologne in English, is a German professional football club based in Cologne in North Rhine-Westphalia. It was formed in 1948 as a merger of the clubs ''Kölner Ball ...

of the

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footb ...

before joining Brazilian club Vasco da Gama after impressive performances with the United States national team in the 1995 Copa America. After only a few months in Brazil, Jones signed with the new Los Angeles Galaxy franchise for Major League Soccer's inaugural season. Jones's best year with the Galaxy came in 1998, when he was second in MLS with 51 points (19 goals and 13 assists), was named to the MLS Best XI, and was also named

U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year The U.S. Soccer Player of the Year is given by the United States Soccer Federation to the American soccer players judged best in the calendar year. It is considered the highest accolade for American soccer players. The U.S. Soccer Male Player o ...

. In 2005, he became the last player in MLS to remain with his original team since 1996. Jones announced on March 19, 2007, that he would retire following the season.

International career

Jones is currently the all-time leader of the United States in appearances, with 164 caps as of the end of 2004 (scoring 15 goals). He played for the team in the

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nels ...

, 1998, and

2002 FIFA World Cup The 2002 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Korea Japan 2002, was the 17th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams organized by ...

s. He was named to the best XI at the 2000 CONCACAF Gold Cup and won with the national team at the

2002 CONCACAF Gold Cup The 2002 CONCACAF Gold Cup was the sixth edition of the Gold Cup, the soccer championship of North America, Central America and the Caribbean ( CONCACAF). The tournament was once again held in the United States, in Miami and Pasadena. The forma ...

. He also represented his country at the 1992 Summer Olympics in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

. After playing in the 1995 Copa America, he also became a popular player in

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived ...

because the nickname used by an Argentine commentator to call him: "Escobillón" (" swab"), due to his bleached

dreadlock Dreadlocks, also known as locs or dreads, are rope-like strands of hair formed by locking or braiding hair. Origins Some of the earliest depictions of dreadlocks date back as far as 1600–1500 BCE in the Minoan Civilization, one of Europe' ...

hairstyle and the similar pronunciation of his name, Is Cobi Jones, and the word "escobillón".

Coaching career

On November 9, 2007, Jones was announced as an assistant coach with the Galaxy under Ruud Gullit. After Gullit's resignation on August 11, 2008, Jones served as the interim head coach until the Galaxy hired Jones's former United States national team head coach Bruce Arena. In January 2011, Jones left the Galaxy to serve as associate director of soccer with the New York Cosmos and was with the club through 2012.

Personal life

On September 12, 2009, Jones married Kim Reese. Reese, a music consultant and former music executive at

New Line Cinema New Line Cinema is an American film production studio owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and is a film label of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye as an independent film distribution company; later becoming a film studio after ...

, met Jones in 2003 and began dating him in 2004. The couple was married at the Four Seasons Resort Aviara in

Carlsbad, California Carlsbad is a coastal city in the North County region of San Diego County, California, United States. The city is south of downtown Los Angeles and north of downtown San Diego. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 114,746. ...

.L.A. Galaxy Soccer Star Cobi Jones Weds
by Mark Dagostino at people.com, URL accessed October 3, 2009. March 10, 2009. They have two sons, Cayden and Cai. On March 11, 2011, Jones was selected for induction into the

in his first year of eligibility.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list the United States' goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Jones goal.''

Honors

Los Angeles Galaxy *

CONCACAF Champions' Cup The CONCACAF Champions League, known officially as the Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League for sponsorship reasons, is an annual continental club football competition organized by CONCACAF. The tournament is contested by clubs from North Amer ...

: 2000 *

MLS Cup The MLS Cup is the annual championship game of Major League Soccer (MLS) and the culmination of the MLS Cup Playoffs. The game is held in November and pits the winner of the Eastern Conference Final against the winner of the Western Conferen ...

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; " Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discover ...

Supporters' Shield The Supporters' Shield is an annual award given to the Major League Soccer team with the best regular season record, as determined by the MLS points system. The Supporters' Shield has been annually awarded at the MLS Supporters' Summit since ...

: 1998,

* U.S. Open Cup:

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanist ...

* Western Conference (playoffs): 1996, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2005 United States * CONCACAF Gold Cup:

Individual * MLS 25 Greatest

References

External links

*
Cobi Jones Biography at Los Angeles Galaxy official site

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Cobi 1970 births Living people Sportspeople from Ventura County, California Soccer players from Detroit Soccer players from California African-American soccer players American soccer players Association football midfielders UCLA Bruins men's soccer players American Youth Soccer Organization players Coventry City F.C. players CR Vasco da Gama players LA Galaxy players Premier League players Campeonato Brasileiro Série A players Major League Soccer players Major League Soccer All-Stars United States men's under-23 international soccer players Olympic soccer players of the United States United States men's international soccer players Footballers at the 1992 Summer Olympics 1992 King Fahd Cup players 1993 Copa América players 1993 CONCACAF Gold Cup players 1994 FIFA World Cup players 1995 Copa América players 1996 CONCACAF Gold Cup players 1998 CONCACAF Gold Cup players 1998 FIFA World Cup players 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup players 2000 CONCACAF Gold Cup players 2002 CONCACAF Gold Cup players 2002 FIFA World Cup players CONCACAF Gold Cup-winning players FIFA Century Club National Soccer Hall of Fame members American expatriate soccer players American expatriate sportspeople in England American expatriate sportspeople in Brazil Expatriate footballers in England Expatriate footballers in Brazil American soccer coaches LA Galaxy non-playing staff LA Galaxy coaches Major League Soccer coaches Major League Soccer broadcasters 21st-century African-American sportspeople 20th-century African-American sportspeople Pan American Games gold medalists for the United States Pan American Games medalists in football Medalists at the 1991 Pan American Games Footballers at the 1991 Pan American Games