Mitch Steven Baggio Cooper (born 18 September 1994) is a

Ni-Vanuatu Ni-Vanuatu (informally abbreviated Ni-Van) is a large group of closely related Melanesians, Melanesian ethnic groups native to the island country of Vanuatu. As such, ''Ni-Vanuatu'' are a mixed ethnolinguistic group with a shared ethnogenesis tha ...

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 who played for

Hume City The City of Hume is a local government area located within the metropolitan area of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It includes the outer north-western suburbs and a number of rural localities between 13 and 40 kilometres from the Melbourne c ...

in the

National Premier Leagues Victoria The National Premier Leagues Victoria, commonly known as NPL Victoria, is a semi-professional soccer league in Victoria, Australia. The league is a part of the National Premier Leagues, and is the highest level within the Victorian soccer leagu ...

Early life

Cooper was born in Port Vila,

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of no ...

, and lived there until age eight, attending the Port Vila International School. He then lived in New Zealand for five years before moving to Australia.

Club career

Gold Coast United

Cooper was called up to the senior squad of

A-League A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...

club

Gold Coast United Gold Coast United Football Club is an Australian soccer club based in Gold Coast, Queensland. The earliest incarnation of the club formed in 1966 and its home ground was at Nikiforides Family Park in Broadbeach. The first era of Gold Coast Unit ...

in February 2012, aged seventeen. With regular

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

Michael Thwaite Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...

suspended, club owner Clive Palmer named Cooper captain for the match against Melbourne Heart as a sign of the club's commitment to promoting young players. Coach Miron Bleiberg subsequently described the move as a symbolic one, claiming that more experienced players would effectively lead the side on the field. Palmer suspended Bleiberg from his role as a result of those comments, replacing him with assistant coach

Mike Mulvey Mike Mulvey (born in Manchester) is an Australian-English football manager, who is currently the Technical Director of South West Queensland Thunder. He had previously been in charge of clubs in Australia, Thailand and Malaysia. Mulvey is b ...

for the Heart match. Gold Coast lost the game 1–0 to a late goal from

Eli Babalj Eli Babalj (born 21 February 1992) is an Australian footballer who plays as a striker. Alongside Robert Cornthwaite and Sasa Ognenovski, Babalj, at 1.95 m is the joint third tallest player to have represented the Australia national associatio ...

. Bleiberg quit the club days later, saying that Palmer's actions had hurt his dignity. In Gold Coast's next game, Cooper scored his first goal for the club, the side's third in a 3–3 draw with

Central Coast Mariners Central Coast Mariners Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Gosford, on the Central Coast of New South Wales. It competes in the A-League Men, under licence from the Australian Professional Leagues (APL). The Ma ...

. He described this as a "dream" start, saying that he had previously been focused on the National Youth League and that he had tried to ignore the controversy surrounding his debut captaincy. Gold Coast United lost its A-League operating licence the following week. The loss of the license caused the FFA to scramble for a replacement team, resulting in the creation of the

Western Sydney Wanderers FC Western Sydney Wanderers Football Club (colloquially known as Western Sydney, or simply as Wanderers) is an Australian professional soccer club based in the Western Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales. It competes in the country's premie ...

Newcastle Jets

On 25 May 2012, Cooper signed a two-year contract with the Newcastle Jets. He cited his respect for Jets coach

Gary van Egmond Gary Rudy Peter van Egmond (born 29 June 1965) is an Australian former soccer player and former head coach of Newcastle Jets in the A-League. Playing career Van Egmond began his playing career with APIA Leichhardt in 1982. It was not until he ...

, who he knew from his time in the Australia U-17s as a significant factor in this choice. Cooper suffered an

anterior cruciate ligament injury An anterior cruciate ligament injury occurs when the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is either stretched, partially torn, or completely torn. The most common injury is a complete tear. Symptoms include pain, an audible cracking sound during inju ...

to his right knee in the Jets' final game of the 2012–13 season, ruling him out for several months. He signed a one-year extension with the Jets in June 2013. Soon after returning to the field, he suffered a second ACL injury, this time to his left knee in a National Youth League game against Western Sydney Wanderers in January 2014. He returned to play in the Jets squad in December 2014. In March 2015, Cooper signed a further two-year deal with the Jets. He scored his first goal for the club on 12 February 2016 with a header in a draw with Brisbane Roar. Cooper was one of three senior players omitted from the Jets squad for a pre-season tour of China in August 2016, with coach Scott Miller talking of moving some players out of the club. However, Miller himself was fired in the next month, which Jets CEO Lawrie McKinna described as giving the players a fresh chance with a new coach.

Nunawading City

Cooper signed for NPL Victoria 2 side Nunawading City for the 2017 season. Mitch scored his first goal for Nunawading against the Goulburn Valley Suns in Round 2 of the NPL2 East season; before scoring a header in a 5–2 win over

Richmond SC Richmond Soccer Club is an Australian soccer club from Richmond, Victoria, an inner eastern suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Richmond compete in the Victorian State League Division 1 South-East competition, the third tier of football in Victor ...

. Throughout the remainder of the season, Cooper scored 18 leagues goals (with 3 in the cup) totalling in 21 goals for the season, he'd be in the top 10 players for the Victorian NPL2 gold medal awards alongside former Newcastle Jets & Gold Coast United team-mate James Brown. He'd score 3 hat-tricks against the Casey Comets, Bendigo City & Melbourne City Youth.

International career

Cooper has represented the

Australia national under-17 association football team The Australia national under-17 soccer team represents Australia in men's international under-17 soccer. The team is controlled by the governing body for Football in Australia, Football Federation Australia (FFA), which is currently a membe ...

including four matches at the

2011 FIFA U-17 World Cup The 2011 FIFA U-17 World Cup was the fourteenth tournament of the FIFA U-17 World Cup, and the eleventh played since the change in age limits from under 16s to Under 17s in 1991. It was held in Mexico with games being played amongst various venues ...

. In March 2019, he was called up for Vanuatu national football team for the first time.

Career statistics

Club

International goals

:''Scores and results list Vanuatu's goal tally first.''

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Mitch 1994 births Living people Australian soccer players Australia youth international soccer players Australia under-20 international soccer players Vanuatuan footballers Vanuatu international footballers Newcastle Jets FC players Gold Coast United FC players A-League Men players Association football midfielders Vanuatuan emigrants to Australia