Michael Cooper

Left Forward - Auckland FC U18
28 Jan 2027
Thursday
Process

Marked for Michael Cooper

13 Edition

The Auckland FC Sentinel

26 Oct 2026
From our football correspondent Triumph

Boardroom

Graduation day at Auckland FC

2 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.

Match

Auckland FC get the job done against Perth Glory

A 2‑0 win over Perth Glory, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.

Market

One of our own: Michael Cooper joins the Auckland FC first team

Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Michael Cooper is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.

Market

Auckland FC promote Owen Mitchell from within

The academy exists for exactly this morning. Owen Mitchell has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.

Player ratings

One of those days for Guillermo May

There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.30, and no argument anywhere in the ground.

Player ratings

Nobody could get near Logan Rogerson

Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

The dugout

Jamie Thompson has his say

“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Jamie Thompson on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.

The dugout

Logan Rogerson knocks on the manager’s door

“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Logan Rogerson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.

Boardroom

Auckland FC say no to the training-ground money

The plan went upstairs and came back down. Nothing about that will make a headline anywhere else, and everybody who works at the training ground will remember it for years.

In brief