Hernán is not an elite player. Not sure where you got that from. He's a very good attacking player. Son ,Bouanga, Messi etc. are "elite" and they cost & earn much much more than Hernán. In today's modern fútbol world what we paid and pay Hernán is nowhere near what an elite players go for.
Having watched Bruce's roster and lineup moves for a year I guess I kind of get his MO. Thinking about his incessant call for "consistent" players, even if consistently mediocre, and stuffing more mercurial players like Hernán and Rodrigues, I get the the feeling that his MO is this. Fill your squad with consistent if mediocre squad players, and then the top it off with a few elite players to make the difference. Think about his previous squads / successes. In each case it seemed that he had one, two, or three elite players. At DCU it was Etcheverry and Jaime Moreno. At LAG he had Donovan, Keane, and Beckham. At NE he had Carles the Gil. The Quakes have some good to very good players - Espinoza, Chicho, and Josef, but they are all 30+ and while very good maybe not really elite. I'm not sure it's enough to make the Quakes a good team - to have those 3 players together with a set of consistent but mediocre squad players. Maybe it was enough 5-10 years ago, but the league gets more competitive every year. Adding another good to very good player (and a younger one) like Hernán could be enough to kind of put the team over the top, let's say at least a top half finish. But we'll probably never get to know if it could happen with Hernán on the roster.
Just because he isn't in the same league as Son ,Bouanga or Messi doesn't mean Hernán López wasn't an elite player. He signed a contract worth $1,020,000 and as far as the Earthquakes are concerned, of course he was an elite player.
$1M is not an "elite player" salary by today's MLS standards. It's not even a DP salary generally. It would be bought down most of the time. Heck, Bruno Wilson is a $1.2M player. $6M is a lot for a transfer though. Leitch wanted to fix our CAM problem, and maybe Hernán could have been the guy but it appears that his MLS career will have been cut short w/o even 1 year's worth of games, so we'll probably never know.
For the Quakes it is. Who else earned more than him? Wondo, Vako , Espinoza, Innocent? Since 2008, that is a lot of money as the Earthquakes are concerned.
Chicho, Espinoza, Josef, and Bruno Wilson all made more than Hernán last year, in most cases way more. And Pellegrino is close - $915k
The MLS salary cap is $5.95 million per team so $1,020,000 for 12 months is a lot of money Anyway, I still retian , we won't be seeing Hernan again so moving on....
The real salary cap includes TAM and GAM, which is over another $5M. Then there's DP, U22, homegrown slots, etc. that do not count against the cap. The Quakes roster expenditure (not including transfer fees) was $17M last year and they were about mid-pack. Several players made close to or well over what Hernán made, including: Chicho ($2.2M), Espinoza ($2M), Josef ($1.45M), Romney ($930k), Pellegrino ($912k), Jones ($850k), Kaye ($800k), Rodrigues ($760k), Daniel ($750k). There are a lot of salaries there that should raise more eyebrows than Hernán's should, given the going rate for "Argentinian creative CAMs" in MLS. Whatever the issues with Hernán were in Bruce's head, salary should have been the least of them, putting it in this context.
At this point the #1 most likely reason he won't be coming back is that Argentinos Juniors appreciates what he brings to their team and wants to make it a permanent transfer. The decision is not really in our hands at this point unless they turn down the option.
I'm guessing he might have some say in the process as well... and I assume he'd be very disappointed to come back considering how well he's doing there.
He'd also be disappointed coming back to play for a coach that doesn't rate him, from a place that clearly appreciates him. Yeah, and I think a scenario where Argentinos rejects the option but negotiates a lower price may happen. Bruce has already completely destroyed the Quakes bargaining position by making it clear publicly that he doesn't rate Hernán. If I'm Argentinos, I'm gonna try to leverage that and try to save a couple of million $'s.
Hernán scores the first goal. Argentinos jrs. won 2-1 on the road vs. Estudiantes dlp. Goal is at min. 1:05
Hernán with the double. There's playoffs this yr. in Argentina. Argentinos jrs. beat Velez Sarsfield 2-0 away to advance and face the winner of Boca vs Talleres. Announcer calling him and an extraordinary player after his second goal. Both were great goals actually. https://www.espn.com.ar/video/clip/_/id/15992854?ex_cid=TW_FansAr
Damn. How can it be that he's not good enough (according to Bruce) for the San Jose Earthquakes. :facepalm
Looks like that video is no longer available. But here are separate videos for the 2 goals. One 30-yard bomb and one GK chip.
Yeah, not sure why but it said the video is no longer available (I think) in Spanish. But now it looks like it works. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯