Kevin James McKenna (born 21 January 1980) is a Canadian 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 ...

who played as a

centre back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

and current assistant manager of 1. FC Köln. Occasionally, he also played as a

central 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 ...

or striker.

Club career

McKenna began to play with soccer 1990 in the Academy team of Calgary Foothills and was promoted to the senior team in 1991. He was selected for the Alberta Provincial Under 15 team in 1995 and won the Canadian National Championships with them that year.

Owen Hargreaves Owen Lee Hargreaves (born 20 January 1981) is a former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. He was known as a hard-working and "solid defensive midfielder who worked tirelessly to win the ball" and provide his teammates with posses ...

was also part of that Alberta team.

Energie Cottbus

After playing with Calgary Foothills as an amateur, McKenna played three seasons (the first two in the reserves) with German

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 ...

side

Energie Cottbus FC Energie Cottbus ( Lower Sorbian: ''Energija Chóśebuz'') is a German football club based in Cottbus, Brandenburg. It was founded in 1963 as SC Cottbus in what was East Germany. After the reunification of Germany, Energie played six seasons i ...

. In the first game of the 2000–01 season, McKenna and international teammate

Paul Stalteri Paul Andrew Stalteri (born October 18, 1977) is a Canadian former professional soccer player who played as a defender or midfielder. He spent most of his professional career in Germany, winning the league and cup double with Werder Bremen in th ...

simultaneously became the first Canadian to play in the German Bundesliga in a match between McKenna's newly promoted Cottbus and Stalteri's

Werder Bremen Sportverein Werder Bremen von 1899 e. V. (), commonly known as Werder Bremen (), Werder or simply Bremen, is a German professional sports club based in Bremen, Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. Founded on 4 February 1899, they are be ...

Hearts

In 2001, McKenna moved to

Scottish Premier League The Scottish Premier League (SPL) was the top level league competition for professional football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football' ...

team Hearts on loan, playing eight games for the

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

club. After a £300,000 transfer that summer, McKenna was the club's second leading scorer in the 2001–02 season with nine goals in 35 games. As a mostly reserve striker in 2002–03, McKenna scored six in 41. He also scored five goals in 38 games in 2003–04. After falling out of favour at Hearts in 2005, McKenna returned to

. He was elected as the club's new captain after the departure of former skipper

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 ...

1. FC Köln

In the summer of 2007, McKenna signed a four-year contract with 1. FC Köln, dropping down a division to the 2. Bundesliga. McKenna made his debut for his new team on 10 August 2007, in a 2–0 away win against

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 ...

. Several weeks later, McKenna scored his first goal for the club on 5 October in a 4–1 home victory over

Kickers Offenbach Offenbacher Kickers, also known as Kickers Offenbach, is a German association football club in Offenbach am Main, Hesse. The club was founded on 27 May 1901 in the Rheinischer Hof restaurant by footballers who had left established local clubs in ...

. He helped Köln to

promotion Promotion may refer to: Marketing * Promotion (marketing), one of the four marketing mix elements, comprising any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or i ...

into the top flight in his first season with the club. McKenna scored his first goal in the 2010–11 season in a 4–2 away loss to powerhouse

on 28 August, the other goal scored by teammate

Lukas Podolski Lukas Josef Podolski (; born Łukasz Józef Podolski, , on 4 June 1985) is a German professional footballer who plays as a forward for Ekstraklasa club Górnik Zabrze. Known for his powerful and accurate left foot, he is known for his explosive ...

. Weeks later during the month of September, McKenna had surgery done on his knee and was labeled out indefinitely, however he made a faster recovery then originally anticipated and returned to the first team in early December. He did not see any playing time until being subbed on in the 75th minute to

Schalke 04 Fußballclub Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e. V., commonly known as FC Schalke 04 (), Schalke 04 (), or abbreviated as S04 (), is a professional German football and multi-sports club originally from the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine ...

on 19 December, the game ended as a 3–0 loss. McKenna made his 2011–12 debut as a starter on 13 August against Schalke in the team's second game of the season, it ended as a 5–1 away loss. Two weeks later Mckenna scored his first goal of the season and the winning goal to beat

Hamburger SV Hamburger Sport-Verein e.V. (), commonly known as Hamburger SV () or Hamburg (), is a German sports club based in Hamburg, with its largest branch being its football section. Though the current HSV was founded in June 1919 from a merger of three ...

in a thrilling 4–3 away victory.

International career

McKenna made his debut for

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

in a May 2000 friendly match against

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

. By November 2009, he has earned a total of 46 caps, scoring nine goals. He has represented Canada in four

FIFA World Cup qualification The FIFA World Cup qualification is a competitive match that a national association football team takes in order to qualify for one of the available berths at the final tournament of the (men's) FIFA World Cup. Qualifying tournaments are hel ...

matches. McKenna has been a regular for the Canadian national team since 2002, when he featured in the

CONCACAF Gold Cup The CONCACAF Gold Cup ( es, Copa de Oro de la CONCACAF, french: Coupe D'or CONCACAF) is the main association football competition of the men's national football teams governed by CONCACAF, determining the continental champion of North Ameri ...

as a target man for

Holger Osieck Holger Osieck (born 31 August 1948) is a German football manager who last managed the Australia national team. Prior to the Australian role, he most recently managed J. League club Urawa Red Diamonds, where he won the 2007 AFC Champions League ...

's side. McKenna scored three goals, including a brace over

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

in the first round. McKenna earned his 50th cap for team Canada in a friendly against

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...

prior to the

2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup The 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup was the 11th edition of the CONCACAF Gold Cup competition, and the 21st CONCACAF regional championship overall in CONCACAF's 50 years of existence. The United States was the host nation. The competition started on June ...

, the game ended in a 2–2 home draw at

BMO Field BMO Field is an outdoor stadium located at Exhibition Place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which is home to Toronto FC of Major League Soccer and the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League. Constructed on the site of the former Exhibit ...

. McKenna was named the captain for Canada during the Gold Cup with

not in the tournament roster.

Coaching career

After retiring, McKenna started his coaching career as assistant manager for 1. FC Köln's U19 squad.MCKENNA UND HÖRNIG ÜBERNEHMEN U21
fc.de, 28 April 2019 He was then, alongside Markus Daun, assistant coach under head coach Stefan Ruthenbeck on an interim basis 1. FC Köln's

team in December 2017, before becoming assistant coach of André Pawlak on the second team of 1. FC Köln in the summer of 2018. After Pawlak was appointed manager for the Bundesliga team in late April 2019, McKenna took over on an interim basis as head coach for the second team in the

Regionalliga West The Regionalliga West is a German semi-professional football division administered by the Western German Football Association based in Duisburg. It is one of the five German regional football associations. Being the single flight of the Western ...

. In July 2019, McKenna left the club because he saw no prospect of a position as head coach in the youth area for the foreseeable future. On 19 September 2019, McKenna was appointed assistant manager of 1. FC Kaiserslautern under the new head coach Boris Schommers. In 2021, he returned to Köln as an assistant coach to

Steffen Baumgart Steffen Baumgart (born 5 January 1972) is a German football manager and former player who coaches 1. FC Köln. Playing career A forward, Baumgart began his professional career at Hansa Rostock in 1995. With a two-year interruption he spent si ...

International goals

:''Scores and results list Canada's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each McKenna goal''.

Honours

International *

Third place:

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 ...

Individual *CONCACAF Gold Cup Best XI: 2002 *

Canada Soccer Hall of Fame The Canada Soccer Hall of Fame honours people and institutions for their contributions to Canadian soccer. It was founded in 1997 by the Ontario Soccer Association and was originally located in Vaughan, Ontario. As of 2019, the Canada Soccer Hal ...

: 2019 Inductee

References

External links

* /

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:McKenna, Kevin 1980 births Living people Association football defenders Canadian soccer players Soccer players from Calgary Canadian people of Scottish descent Canadian expatriate soccer players Expatriate footballers in Germany Canadian expatriate sportspeople in Germany Expatriate footballers in Scotland Canadian expatriate sportspeople in Scotland Calgary Foothills FC players FC Energie Cottbus players FC Energie Cottbus II players Heart of Midlothian F.C. players 1. FC Köln players Bundesliga players 2. Bundesliga players Scottish Premier League players Canada men's under-23 international soccer players Canada men's international soccer players 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup players 2002 CONCACAF Gold Cup players 2003 CONCACAF Gold Cup players 2005 CONCACAF Gold Cup players 2009 CONCACAF Gold Cup players 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup players 1. FC Köln non-playing staff