However, just after halftime, Cooper suffered a left ankle sprain and in the 56th minute was taken off for Dominic Oduro. While Cooper didn't train on Monday, head coach Schellas Hyndman called that merely a precautionary measure, meaning he should return to training on Tuesday morning.
"I think he will be fine," Hyndman said. "I really do. He's such a competitor and such a fighter. He took a shot and his footing went out on him. He twisted his ankle pretty bad on his planting foot, so we took him off. The positive sign is that he didn't want to come off. He said he was fine but we could see him limping and the lack of aggression going for the ball. We just thought that it may behoove us to make sure we protect him. He's getting treatment today. From what the trainer said to me, he should be all right."
Had it been Cooper's call, he would've stayed in the game. But Hyndman wanted him to come off because he was less than 100 percent, which was why Oduro took his spot.
"We felt like we didn't need to give him an opportunity to make it worse," Hyndman said. "Again, we also felt that we needed somebody at 100 percent. The thing Dom brought to us was instant 100 percent speed along with Jeff (Cunningham). Then, with Eric (Avila) out there, our strike force became more aggressive."
Cooper spent Monday's training session inside the facilities at Pizza Hut Park icing his ankle and doing other work.
"I feel a lot better today," he said. "I hope so (that I can return to training on Tuesday). I feel significantly better today."
Even after leaving the game, Cooper could be seen on the bench cheering and rooting his teammates on enthusiastically. Like his fellow Hoops, he was pleased to leave the nation's capital with a well-earned point in the draw.
"I think at the end of the day, it was a great result for us," Cooper said. "It felt great to get a point there, especially coming back from behind. My teammates showed so much character in coming back and pulling the result out of the game. D.C. is a difficult place to go play. They have incredible fan support. It's also a fun place to play because of the atmosphere. It was great to get a point out of the game."
He also heaped considerable praise on Oduro for his performance in his place.
"I respect Schellas, (assistant coach) John (Ellinger) and the coaches' decision to pull me out," Cooper said. "I thought Dom went in there and did a great job. I thought everyone really played well. At the end of the day, we pulled out a great result and I'm happy for the guys that we were able to do that."
Hyndman wasn't coaching FCD when Cooper broke his right leg last June against the LA Galaxy and missed much of the rest of the 2007 season. But that doesn't mean that the Hoops' boss didn't get a little nervous when his top scorer fell to the field at RFK.
"Of course, any time a player gets hurt, you always have a nervousness about how long is this going to be?," Hyndman said. "It was good to see him excited on the bench and very supportive of his teammates. He couldn't be any happier for the tie as if he would've scored the goal."
When asked last week about Cooper's scoring drought, which had reached four games, Hyndman commented that he felt his striker might be putting too much pressure on himself to score, expectations that Hyndman has helped temper a bit.
"You can't control the players' expectations on themselves and the demands they put on themselves," Hyndman said. "But what you can do is let the player know that you're supporting them and that you know he wants to be a difference maker and he wants to score the goals to help the team win. You just let him know that because you're not scoring, you're not coming out. You tell him that he's been unlucky to take the pressure off himself and that it will come. That was a great goal he had, a great early goal."
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