How close does Jeff Cooper think he is to bringing a Major League Soccer team to St. Louis? Close enough that he has sold his interest in the lucrative law firm he started and that bears his name to devote his attention to the potential MLS club

"It means that we are so close that I've gone full time on this project," Cooper said, "to push it across the finish line. I'm confident we'll get there. The whole time this has been a matter of passion on my part. Now, I've really put everything else aside, including the business I've built for the last seven or eight years."

Essentially, Cooper has gotten out of the law business and into the soccer business.

"When you have a day job and you're trying to manage a project of this magnitude, and this has turned into the MLS, WPS (the women's soccer league that starts next year) and the youth club, it just becomes overwhelming," he said.

Cooper thinks he is close to surmounting the final hurdle: getting enough investors. The stadium deal remains in place in Collinsville and awaits a final vote, which won't happen until after St. Louis gets a team.

"We're closer than we've ever been," said Cooper, who has thought he was close before. "As you go through this process, you learn what the definition of 'close' really means. ... I think it will happen this summer."

He said some potential investors have local ties and others don't.

Since Philadelphia edged St. Louis to become the league's 16th team in February, MLS Commissioner Don Garber has said that St. Louis is the front-runner to be the 17th team. Among the other cities mentioned are Montreal, Vancouver, Portland, Atlanta and a second team in New York, but none is as far along in the process as St. Louis. Cooper said it would be up to the league whether the team would start play in 2010 or 2011.