Frank Klopas

Fotios "Frank" Klopas (Φώτιος «Φρανκ» Κλόπας; born September 1, 1966) is an American former soccer player who played as a forward.

Following his retirement, he served as a color commentator for the Chicago Fire before later working as a front office executive and head coach for both the Fire and Montreal Impact.

He is currently the head coach for the Fire.

In 1983, he signed with the Chicago Sting of the North American Soccer League straight out of high school, but an injury led to him missing the team's final outdoor season.

Klopas would play for the indoor Sting in the MISL for four seasons.

He earned second team All Star honors during the 1986–1987 season.

Klopas made his debut for the U.S. national team in 1987, coming on in a 2–0 Olympic Qualifying loss at Canada on 23 May.

Though this was technically his debut for the team, it isn't counted among his senior national team caps as Olympic play is not considered to be of full international status by FIFA even though many of the players that made up the side were full national team players.

Klopas was also on the U.S. team at the 1987 Pan American Games.

In total, Klopas earned five Olympic team appearances, scoring one goal in a 4–2 qualifying win at El Salvador on October 18, 1987 and helping the team qualify for the 1988 Olympics.

Klopas would start and play the full 90 minutes in a 0–0 draw with hosts South Korea and a 4–2 loss to the Soviet Union as the U.S. failed to advance from their group.

In 1988, Klopas moved to Greece to play with AEK Athens.

He played four seasons with the team.

Klopas made his full senior team debut when he came on as a halftime substitute for Chico Borja in a 2–0 friendly loss to Colombia in Miami on May 14, 1988.

He scored his first two international goals in a 5–1 defeat of Jamaica in St. Louis in the second leg of a home-and-home World Cup qualifying series on August 13, 1988.

Despite appearing in seven of 10 U.S. World Cup qualifiers for the 1990 FIFA World Cup, Klopas did not make the trip to the team's 1–0 clinching victory over Trinidad & Tobago on November 19, 1989 because head coach Bob Gansler didn't think he was fit enough.

Subsequently, he was not included among the 22-man U.S. squad that went to Italy for the tournament.

Injuries and the fact that he was playing abroad in Greece at a time when the National Team was run like a club team limited Klopas to just three caps between 1990–1993.

However, he tore his anterior cruciate ligament in 1991.

That injury and a subsequent infection hindered his playing for nearly two years.

In 1992, Klopas signed a contract with the U.S. Soccer Federation to play full-time for the United States men's national soccer team.

After the 1994 FIFA World Cup, Klopas returned to Greece and signed with Apollon Athens in 1994 for the remainder of the 1994–1995 season, as well as the 1995–1996 season.

He debuted with Apollon against his former club, AEK.

In early 1994, Klopas returned from surgery on his anterior cruciate ligament and began working towards a place on the hosting U.S. side's roster for the 1994 FIFA World Cup.

Under the guidance of Bora Milutinovic, the U.S. team took on a conservative, defensive approach in the lead-up to the tournament which was also predicated upon the fact that the side didn't have a lot of offensive weapons.

Klopas returned to the national team on February 18, coming on as a halftime substitute for Joe-Max Moore in a 1–1 draw with Bolivia in Miami.

Over the next few months, he continued to build his fitness up and scored his third international goal in the team's 3–0 friendly win over Moldova on April 20 in Davidson, N.C.

In 1996, Major League Soccer began developing teams for its inaugural season.

In order to ensure an equitable distribution of talent to each team, MLS allocated known players to each team.

MLS allocated Klopas to the Kansas City Wizards where he would spend two years.

After being sent to the Columbus Crew just before the 1997 MLS Expansion Draft, he was traded in February 1998 to the Chicago Fire for Jason Farrell, who had been selected from the Crew.

Klopas would play two years for Chicago before retiring, helping them to the MLS Cup in 1998 and the U.S. Open Cup to complete "The Double."

In four years in MLS, Klopas scored 13 goals and added 16 assists.

He had six goals and five assists in 40 games—24 starts—for the Fire, including both goals in a 2–0 win over the Tampa Bay Mutiny in the Fire's first ever game at Soldier Field on April 4, 1998.

Klopas' most notable goal for the Fire came in Golden Goal overtime of a 2–1 win over the Columbus Crew in the 1998 U.S. Open Cup Final at Soldier Field.

Klopas retired following the 1999 season.

He was inducted into Chicago's "Ring of Fire," which celebrates outstanding players and contributors to the organization, in 2004.

He was inducted into the Illinois Soccer Hall of Fame in 2005.

Klopas emigrated to the United States from Prosymna, Peloponnese, Greece when he was eight years old and received U.S. citizenship on his 18th birthday.

He and his family settled in Chicago, where he attended and played boys soccer, at Mather High School, which he led to the Chicago Public League championship his senior year.