The Official Hernán López Muñoz thread

The Athletic: San Jose Earthquakes complete club-record deal for Hernán López from Godoy Cruz

The San Jose Earthquakes have signed attacking midfielder Hernán López from Godoy Cruz in a club-record deal worth around $6 million, sources briefed on the deal tell The Athletic.

CL Merlo first reported the agreement, which got done ahead of Tuesday night’s deadline. This deal doubles the club’s previous transfer record, which was a deal to sign Carlos Gruezo last winner for around $3 million.

López, 23, joins the club as a designated player. He has spent most of his career with Godoy Cruz after breaking through the River Plate academy. He had five goals and six assists in 28 appearances across all competitions last year.

The move could be a much-needed boost for San Jose, which is sitting bottom of the Western Conference. The club worked until the end of the window to add a DP No. 10 as they planned.

López projects to star in attack along with Cristian Espinoza, Amahl Pellegrino and Jeremy Ebobisse.
​

More info:
Wikipedia
Transfermarkt
Fbref

 

Wow he's related to the Argentine Messi

Get excited, Quakes fans: Wiki (and more importantly my man @CLMerlo) says Hernán López is the grand-nephew of Diego Maradona. https://t.co/1G1GLAbySP pic.twitter.com/6J36aiGuwQ

— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) April 25, 2024

 

If Cade brought in 4 million, and Lopez costs 6 million, then the team upgraded from Cade to Lopez for 2 million (minus what Cade's salary had been).

 

A lot of Chofis vibes but it seems he should be more comfortable centrally. Chofis only seemed effective coming in from right wing.

 

The differences are that Chofis is more of a goal scorer and Hernán is more of an attack with the ball guy, and Hernán plays defense. Another way to put it - Chofis is more crafty / finesse, Hernán is a grinder. We need a grinder. We're not good enough to be able to get the most out of a finesse player. That said, Hernán had better be better for us than Chofis because Chofis was good but didn't move the needle that much and Hernán cost way, way more.

 

I would imagine that Hernán's salary will be way more than Cade's. The $6M transfer sounds like a lot but it's going to allocated over his 3 year contract, at least in terms of the the roster rules, and I would imagine that CL can allocate it that way in terms of the budget. By comparison Gruezo is a $1M a year transfer hit. So $1M extra per year relative to Gruezo and we turn a Gruezo into an Hernán. Could be a bargain.

Also, one other side note, I saw in the Argentinian press that it was $6M with incentives to go to $7M. The incentive they quoted was at least 15 games played. I assume that's 15 games this season, otherwise it would be the biggest slam dunk incentive ever.

 

I just saw the news in the TSS Discord, and this is the first BS thread I am reading. Will be fascinating to read what everyone has to say here. I am certainly confused as to why Luchi said nothing was happening when this was still in the works. Maybe CL didn’t bother telling him?

 

Theories:

1) It came together at the last minute.
2) Luchi was sandbagging, or at least not taking anything at all for granted.
3) CL was being Stealth CL.

 

CL probably hasn’t told Fisher yet.

 

Or, Luchi is on his way out, so no need to let him know any future plans

 

I'd be very, very surprised if Luchi is on his way out because:

1) CL knows that he didn't get Luchi the DP attacker he needed until the signing that just happened.
2) CL knows that it appears that we are not as bad as our record indicates (based on several metrics).
3) CL knows that Luchi got us to the playoffs last year, style points notwithstanding
4) CL knows that Fish is not going to want to buy out another coaching contract this soon.

 

I think Luchi was just being hyper-literal that nobody new was coming before the next game. This was in a midweek press conference last week.

 

I just hope this isn’t the front office doubling down on the Gruezo mistake.

 

Could be but that should be obvious because even if they'd announced a signing last week, the chance that the player would be available to play in the next game would be next to nil unless maybe it was an intra-league signing. I'd have to hear the context to get a better read.

 

Jamiro who?

 

Fantastic

 

When can he start?

 

Finally we got something nice.

 

Now, let's make sure we don't play him as wingers like we did to MPG.

 

I think there’s little chance of that.

 

Okay, what does this even mean??

 

It's very likely he will hit the games played incentives so let's call this $7 million not 6

Can confirm. I'm told the transfer fee could rise to $7m with incentives. #Quakes74 https://t.co/A5LB0Y7FK7

— Jeff Carlisle (@JeffreyCarlisle) April 25, 2024