Photo by Anne-Marie Sorvin/ USA Today Sports
By RYAN TOLMICH
Chivas de Guadalajara and Major League Soccer have spent weeks negotiating the future of forward Erick “Cubo” Torres, and it now appears the two sides will get the best of both worlds.
The Mexican club confirmed Thursday that the former Chivas USA striker has been sold to MLS, but would immediately return to Chivas de Guadalajara for a six-month loan stint. The loan comes as a response to the Mexican side’s current form, which has the club in danger of relegation.
While Chivas’ announcement included no potential MLS destinations for the 21-year-old forward, Goal USA reported Wednesday that the Houston Dynamo were the front-runners to land Torres after stepping up to meet the $7.5 million asking price for the forward’s services. The report added that the transfer fee could be dropped if Chivas retained Torres for the upcoming Clausura season, allowing Torres to join a new MLS club midseason.
Torres scored 15 goals in 26 appearances for Chivas USA in 2014, while also earning three call-ups to the Mexican national team, for whom he scored a goal.
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What do you think of the Torres deal? Excited to see the forward return to MLS? How do you see Torres performing for Chivas this season?
Share your thoughts below.
So, I thought I might find it by reading the comments, but I didn’t (or maybe I missed it.)
What are the rules regarding where Cubo lands? Why did LA and Seattle both have first right of refusal?
We eventually found out with the Dempsey move that any team is welcome to throw their hat in the ring for a D.P. “with a salary over a certain threshold.” I don’t know if Torres fits into that category or if he fits into yet another new category of “a desirable player whose team has just been dissolved” whereby all teams are similarly welcome to try for him. Garber usually clears these things up several months or years down the road. MLS MUST institute free agency. It’s LONG overdue! If the NFL, NHL, and NBA can do it while still maintaining their salary cap and fueling a highly competitive league SO can MLS!!! With MLS 3.0 the fans have run out of patience with the current system that has served it’s purpose during the fledgling years of MLS 1.0 and 2.0. FREE AGENCY or bust from this MLS fan since MLS 2.0 (2007). Prior to Beckham I thought MLS was a total joke. As much as I love MLS if free agency doesn’t happen this CBA I may go back to following other leagues.
Sounds like you wont be following the MLS for quite a long time.
need a thread ASAP on the Mix to Xolos rumors. explains why he was in San Diego a few weeks ago.
Just don’t flip a coin to figure out where he goes, MLS.
This is great news! If he can score goals for Chivas USA he can score goals anywhere.
7.5 million? Is he worth it? Heck loan him to MX and get a few players in exchange
He’s worth it. The guy’s a goal scoring machine.
Absolutely worth every penny… I wish he had strange, mystical premonitions pulling him toward Central Ohio like Richard Dreyfus had in Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind.
i really want to get some details on who exactly paid the fee. if Houston stepped up to pay it, then i want to know that. if MLS paid for it, then Cubo could end up anywhere.
The biggest crime here is that Torres spells his Eric with a ‘ck’ rather than a just a ‘c’ or ‘k’.
Couldn’t agree more. It’s high time SBI starts focusing on the more relevant issues.
So while Chivas de Guadalajara owned him he played in MLS, but now that MLS owns him he plays for Chivas? Why do I get the feeling that Chivas is going to buy him back in 6 months…
As Tim Vickery says, you’re not just buying a player. You’re buying a human being.
I see the frustration that Chivas still gets to keeps Cubo a little while longer, especially since Vergara was a cancer in MLS. But MLS had to give SOMETHING to make the Cubo deal happen. Remember – he made the ultimatum that if he was going to play in MLS, he has to stay in LA. This was a kid who played for Chivas USA for two seasons. He got used to LA. As a Fire fan, I was pissed that he wanted to stay in California, but I definitely understand it from a human standpoint.
So what did MLS had to give up? Cubo on loan for six months in Guadalajara and then move to any city in MLS who could fork over the money. (So far, Houston I guess.) It’s designed to make the transition easier to play in another foreign American city. It’s amazing to me that MLS even made this deal happen, at least tentatively. It’s great that we’re getting these great players so young. MLS 3.0 is right.
right on.
Great news and smart move by MLS to keep a very dynamic young player in the league. Kid is only going to get better… shame the timing doesn’t work for LAFC.
A side note- Vergera has been a freaking disaster for Chivas…. much as the concept was flawed, perhaps the MLS iteration didn’t go down entirely because he favored the “parent club” so much as he can’t run / is a bungling clown with any club. The once proud Chivas de Guadalajara is a shadow of the club I watched as a kid and fast becoming to La MX what Chivas USA was to MLS.
Couldn’t agree more. I remember not wanting to play Chivas ( USA ) in the playoffs in 2009. Just a train wreck. I think everyone is just looking at it like oh it was Chivas, it was flawed idea,etc.
Which is fine and true, but in the time that the organization was fallling, how many teams have been added and then MLS makes money of the sale of the franchise ! It is almost impossible to fail in MLS right now…and he did.
It depends. He made a killing money wise with his crappy team. As a business man it was one of the best moves he’s ever made and make no mistake, he’s a business man first and a football men second.
Its not sustainable. A short sighted, one dimensional scheme for immediate profits is more along the lines of profiteering…. is a money making scheme, not a business plan. Someone that is willing to suck the blood out of it’s host/the business for short term gain and leave behind a dead carcass hardly qualifies as a businessman. I’d call that a parasite.
A businessman is looking to grow a healthy organization that sustains profits over the long haul. A good sports team owner is not a day trader, but is buying into an industry that intends to maintain a league indefinitely through clubs that become built into the fabric of a city/culture. That being so, they successfully maintain a quality product on the field in a way that can be carried out over the long haul. It’s quite possible and built into the unique nature of the business. There are few “customers”more blindly and passionately loyal and willing to part with their money than those of good sports teams.
We are talking MLS here. Ethics has nothing to do with it.
LoL Whatever the heck that is supposed to mean. 1st: All leagues would prefer an owner seeking long term growth, sustainable profit and a competitive team over gutting a club…. facts seem to point to MLS maybe in particular, no?
As nice a try as it was distract from the point, my friend…. my comment and Vergera’s “business practices” have as much and now, way more to do with the Mexican league than MLS… who incidentally, went out of their way to rid themselves of this fine business partner. Safe to say, I don’t think he’d be missed at all in the MX or Guadalajara in particular.
Salud
It’d be a shame if Houston landed Cubo. I’d like to see him in LA, or partnered up front with Villa at NYCFC.
Keep that name for a while. It’s worth it.
Comment wasn’t that good in my opinion, but nice job on the name line !
Credit where credit’s due. Agreed.
I appreciate the name. Gave me a smile on my face while I’m fighting a cold at work.
Plenty of Mexican support down in Houston, it wouldn’t be shame, it would be a huge pick up.
I would love to see it, but not at the cost of Zardes losing playing time, or the Galaxy landing a quality DP midfielder.
As it stands, I am very contemt. Thankfully the days of the Galaxy signing players based on race alone *seem* to be over.
MLS 3.0. Young Mexican rising star chooses MLS over Chivas.
MLS 2.0 begins when players sign with clubs not the league.
you mad that MLS is growing at a healthy clip and exceeding all expectations ?
I’m mexican and I just don’t get the hype around Torres, imho he isn’t even close to our best young player, Hirving Lozano (19), Erick Gutierrez (19), Jurgen Damm (22), Erick Aguirre (17), Tecatito Corona (21), Raul Gudiño (18) and Ponchito Gonzalez (20) all look better as prospects and our current NT forwards are prerrt youngtoo, Gio (25), Vela (25), Jimenez (23), Pulido (23) and Chicharito (26), Cubo looks like a player of the same level as De Nigris or Javier Orozco, decent but nothing special and both of these guys have several caps with our NT.
I think MLS lost with this in terms of getting talent, Cubo is not even close to being woth 7.5m, Camilo Sanvezzo is a way better player than Cubo and will probably end in a big club like America o Cruz Azul in the summer or maybe even in Europe like it happened to Enner Valencia and turn into a Liga MX star, by the time Cubo reaches his prime and we need a generation change in Mexico I believe that, at best, he’ll be our new De Nigris prior 2012, a guy to come from the bench when we are desperate to score with Lozano and Tecatito being our new Vela and Giovani/Chicharito, not close to the star MLS expects him to be.
*yawn*
What is it about fans of Mexico that always downgrade any player that has thoughts of playing for the USMNT or in the MLS. Maybe what you are saying is true, but you have to admit your comments are basically repeated for any player that choses the US over Mexico.
Admit it, no matter what he does in the MLS it wont matter to Mexican fans as it will all be discounted. Conversley, had he tore up the bottom table LigaMX teams folks would be going nuts over him.
So MLS is footing the entire bill for this transfer or will the club (Houston?) assume any of financial fee?
I dunno. Houston seems to have money. Their stadium is nice… well It looked nice. I only drove past it.
Pictures are gorgeous from what I’ve seen (and downtown too!).
BBVA Compass is nice and has a lively atmosphere on game day. Soon to be on a Metrorail line, too!
MLS owes Chicago. Not how these things should work but hey, it’s MLS!
“MLS owes Chicago” Give me a break. Chicago lost a blind draw for Jones. Lets stop pretending that Chicago discovered Jones as a transfer target and did all the legwork.
Show me in the MLS Roster Rules where it explicitly says “blind draw” to add a DP from the USMNT. MLS certainly owes Chicago because of the league’s irresponsible behavior of pulling new rules out of thin air and lack of transparency, or as Garber puts it, “What I will say is that as an emerging league, there are times when we are figuring out those rules as we go along.” The Fire didn’t discover Jones, but they made it known that they were in the running before anybody else.
Oh, please. No one owes Chicago anything.
Get a grip.
Either way, Torres would be a great player for a market like Chicago. They have not had any excitement there since Blanco was on the roster.
They need an exciting Mexican on the roster. It just may help them put butts in seats. Something they have not been able to do for a while.