Cory Gibbs (born January 14, 1980) is an American former

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. He played professionally for clubs in Germany, the Netherlands and England. He also played 19 international matches for the U.S. national soccer team, including at the

2003 CONCACAF Gold Cup The 2003 CONCACAF Gold Cup was the seventh edition of the Gold Cup, the association football championship of North America, Central America and the Caribbean ( CONCACAF). For the first time since 1993, the tournament was held in more than one ...

Career

College and amateur

Gibbs was born in

Fort Lauderdale, Florida Fort Lauderdale () is a coastal city located in the U.S. state of Florida, north of Miami along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of and largest city in Broward County, Florida, Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the 2020 Unit ...

. He played

college soccer College soccer is played by teams composed of soccer players who are enrolled in colleges and universities. It is very prominent in United States, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and as well as in South Africa and the Philippines. The United Ki ...

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

, joining the team in 1997. During his career, Brown won three

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...

Championships and participated in the NCAA Tournament all four years. In 2000, Gibbs led Brown to an Ivy League championship and the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament. He was named Ivy League Player of the Year, and a First-Team All-American. In 2000, he spent the collegiate off season with the

Palm Beach Pumas Palm Beach Pumas was an American soccer team based in West Palm Beach, Florida, United States. Founded in 2000, the team played in the USL Premier Development League (PDL), the fourth tier of the American Soccer Pyramid, until 2008, when the franc ...

of the Premier Development League. He was also one of three Brown soccer players, including Matthew Cross ( Kansas City Wizards) and

Scott Powers Scott Powers is an American physiologist, focusing on investigating the effects of muscular exercise and inactivity on both cardiac and skeletal muscle currently the UAA Endowed Professor at University of Florida The University of Florida (Flo ...

(

Columbus Crew The Columbus Crew, formerly known as Columbus Crew SC, is an American professional soccer club based in Columbus, Ohio. The Crew competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference and began play in 1996 as one ...

), to be drafted in the

2001 MLS SuperDraft The 2001 Major League Soccer SuperDraft was held on February 5, 2001, at the Signature Grand in Davie, Florida. Player selection Any player whose name is marked with an * was contracted under the Project-40 Generation Adidas is a joint ventur ...

Professional

Germany

After graduating from Brown in 2001, Gibbs decided not to play in MLS and joined

FC St. Pauli Fußball-Club St Pauli von 1910 e.V., commonly known as simply FC St Pauli (), is a German professional football club based in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg, that competes in the 2. Bundesliga. The football department is part of a larger sp ...

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 footba ...

. He played 25 games for St. Pauli that season, becoming the youngest American to score a goal in the Bundesliga with a goal against FC Cologne. He was also a part of the side that beat the world champions Bayern Munich, a result that earned St. Pauli the nickname of ''weltpokalsiegerbesieger'', translated as World Club Championship Winner Beaters. St. Pauli was relegated to the

2. Bundesliga The 2. Bundesliga ( ) is the second division of professional football in Germany. It was implemented 11 years after the founding of the Fußball-Bundesliga as the new second division for professional football. The 2. Bundesliga is ranked below ...

after the 2001–02 season, and Gibbs played an equally important role with the team in his second season as in his first. St. Pauli, however, was relegated again after the 2002–03 season, this time to the

Regionalliga Nord The Regionalliga Nord ( en, Regional League North) is the fourth tier of the German football league system in the states of Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen and Hamburg. It is one of five leagues at this level, together with the Regional ...

, the German third division. Gibbs remained with the team, being moved from central defense to

defensive 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 boundari ...

. Gibbs decided to leave St. Pauli during 2003 due to the low level of play and lack of exposure needed to secure a spot on the United States national team. A move to

Jahn Regensburg Sport- und Schwimmverein Jahn Regensburg e. V., commonly known as SSV Jahn Regensburg, Jahn Regensburg, SSV Jahn or simply Jahn is a German football club based in Regensburg, Bavaria. The club is based on a gymnastics club founded in 1886 a ...

of the 2. Bundesliga fell through.

MLS

Gibbs returned to the United States and play in Major League Soccer, where he would be easily visible and available for international matches. Although the Columbus Crew initially tried to acquire Gibbs, he eventually ended up with

FC Dallas FC Dallas is an American professional soccer club based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The club competes as a member of the Western Conference in Major League Soccer (MLS). The franchise began play in 1996 as a charter club of the le ...

, then known as the Dallas Burn. Gibbs was a starter in every game for which he was available during his stint with Dallas. He made a total of 21 appearances.

Europe

On January 20, 2005, the Dutch club

Feyenoord Feyenoord Rotterdam () is a Dutch professional football club (association football), football club in Rotterdam, which plays in the Eredivisie, the top tier in Dutch football. Founded as Wilhelmina in 1908, the club changed to various names bef ...

agreed on a

transfer Transfer may refer to: Arts and media * ''Transfer'' (2010 film), a German science-fiction movie directed by Damir Lukacevic and starring Zana Marjanović * ''Transfer'' (1966 film), a short film * ''Transfer'' (journal), in management studies ...

with MLS, and Gibbs signed a four and a half year contract with the club. In his first season, he made 15 appearances and scored one goal. After injuring his knee in a U.S. national team friendly against

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

on May 28, 2005, Gibbs rehabbed, under the direction of Dr. Daniel Kalbac in Miami, Florida, and came back from his injury on January 19, 2006. On January 24, 2006, Feyenoord loaned Gibbs to ADO Den Haag for the remainder of the season. Gibbs signed a pre-contract agreement with English

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

Charlton Athletic Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in ...

in May 2006 just before

Alan Curbishley Llewellyn Charles "Alan" Curbishley (born 8 November 1957) is an English former football player and manager. He played as a midfielder for West Ham United, Birmingham City, Aston Villa, Charlton Athletic and Brighton & Hove Albion and has worke ...

's departure. After a short stay at Charlton it was announced that he would leave June 30, 2008 at the end of his contract. He never played a match for Charlton due to injuries.

Return to MLS

Gibbs moved to MLS. It was expected that he would be selected by the Galaxy, who had first option to pick up his contract in the allocation listings, but he was selected by

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

after the Galaxy passed on Gibbs in order to be able to pick

Eddie Lewis Edward Lewis may refer to: Politicians * Edward Lewis (Devizes MP) (1650–1674), British MP for Devizes, 1669–1674 * Edward Lewis (Radnor MP), British MP for Radnor, 1761–1768, 1769–1774 and 1775–1790 * Edward Parke Custis Lewis (1837–1 ...

. Gibbs was transferred to

New England Revolution The New England Revolution is an American professional soccer club based in the Greater Boston area that competes in Major League Soccer (MLS), in the Eastern Conference of the league. It is one of the ten charter clubs of MLS, having compe ...

on January 21, 2010 in a trade that involved four players,

MLS SuperDraft The MLS SuperDraft is an annual college draft for teams of Major League Soccer in the United States and Canada. It takes place in January and is used by teams to select players who have graduated from college or otherwise been signed by the l ...

picks and allocation money. Gibbs was selected by the Chicago Fire with the seventh pick of the MLS Re-Entry Draft on December 15, 2010. He agreed terms with the club the same day. At the end of the 2011 season, he was named the club's Defender of the Year. After starting in the first three games of the 2012 season, Gibbs suffered an injury, tearing his meniscus on April 4, 2012. After missing the rest of the 2012 season, he announced his retirement from the game on November 26, 2012.

International

Gibbs's return to the U.S. helped his national team career, as he received frequent callups for

2006 FIFA World Cup qualifiers The 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification competition was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA confederations. Each confederation – the AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF (North, Central America and Caribbean), CONMEBOL (South America) ...

. Gibbs solidified his position as one of USA's top central defenders. Since making his first full international appearance June 8, 2003, in a friendly against

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, Gibbs received 19

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Ja ...

. Gibbs was initially a part of the United States'

2006 FIFA World Cup The 2006 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Germany 2006, was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to host th ...

team, but he reinjured his right knee in a friendly with

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...

on May 23, 2006 and was replaced by

Gregg Berhalter Gregg Matthew Berhalter (, ; born August 1, 1973) is an American soccer coach and former player. He is also the current head coach of the United States men's national soccer team. Berhalter previously coached Columbus Crew SC in Major League Soc ...

. Gibbs played only 45 minutes all season for Charlton's reserves following surgery to repair cartilage in his knee. Gibbs returned to international football when he was selected by

Bob Bradley Robert Frank Bradley (born March 3, 1958) is an American soccer coach who is the head coach and sporting director of Toronto FC. A native of New Jersey and graduate of Princeton University, Bradley coached in the American college game and Maj ...

for the United States' March 26 match against

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

Personal

He is engaged to

Paramount Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to: Entertainment and music companies * Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...

CBS Sports Talent Manager Jennifer Medvigy. They will be married on December 30, 2023, in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Gibbs also runs a soccer camp named 'Cory Gibbs StarSoccer', which takes place every summer in the United States.

Career statistics

Club

International

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gibbs, Cory 1980 births Living people Sportspeople from Fort Lauderdale, Florida ADO Den Haag players African-American soccer players American expatriate soccer players American expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands American expatriate sportspeople in Germany American soccer players Soccer players from Florida Brown Bears men's soccer players Brown University alumni Charlton Athletic F.C. players Chicago Fire FC players Colorado Rapids players FC Dallas players Eredivisie players Expatriate footballers in the Netherlands Expatriate footballers in Germany Feyenoord players FC St. Pauli players Bundesliga players 2. Bundesliga players New England Revolution players Palm Beach Pumas players United States men's international soccer players 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup players 2003 CONCACAF Gold Cup players Major League Soccer players USL League Two players Major League Soccer All-Stars United States men's under-20 international soccer players LA Galaxy draft picks Miami Fusion draft picks Association football defenders All-American men's college soccer players 21st-century African-American sportspeople 20th-century African-American people