Galaxy Not Looking Quite as Starry-Eyed After Latest Trade

Eduardo “El Tanque” Hurtado, the bruising forward whose powerful running and devastating finishing carried the Galaxy to Major League Soccer’s championship game in 1996, was traded to the New York/New Jersey MetroStars on Wednesday.

For one of its cornerstone players, the Galaxy received one of Hurtado’s teammates on the Ecuador national team--midfielder Wellington Sanchez, who will join the Galaxy today and be available for Saturday’s game against the Colorado Rapids at Denver.

Hurtado, whose performance dipped substantially in 1997, was told the news at the Rose Bowl on Wednesday morning by Coach Octavio Zambrano.

“Obviously, he didn’t take it well at the beginning,” Zambrano said of Hurtado’s reaction, “but at the end I think he understood my position and that this is a business and we’re all professionals and players are subject to this type of situation.

“After the first shock, he was able to digest it a little bit better and was trying to deal with the logistical issues of [uprooting] his family, his kids’ school, the lease on his house, and so on.”

Hurtado’s departure was not totally unexpected, but the timing was a surprise.

“This issue with Eduardo is not a recent issue, it’s been dragging along even a little bit from Year 1 and then took a worse turn in Year 2,” Zambrano said. “I had an opportunity to let him go during the off-season, but he promised me he was going to come [into this season] motivated and ready to go, that his third year was going to be a good year for him.

“But I have to say that during preseason and during friendly matches and in his overall output, I didn’t see the fire. There was an opportunity to do something, and I seized the moment.”

Hurtado, 29, was an MLS all-star in his first season, finishing as the second-leading scorer in the league with 24 goals and seven assists in 32 regular-season and playoff games. In 1997, however, national team commitments disrupted his playing time with the Galaxy and he invariably found himself double- and triple-teamed. He had only eight goals and three assists in 23 games.

In the Galaxy’s two games this season, both victories, he had one goal and one assist. He was unavailable for comment Wednesday.

Sanchez, 23, is a newcomer to the league, having joined the MetroStars only a few weeks ago. He was voted Ecuador’s player of the year in 1997 while playing for Nacional in Quito.

Zambrano sees him as an ideal backup for the injured Mauricio Cienfuegos as the Galaxy’s midfield playmaker. He also likes his versatility.

“I think one thing that he can bring to us is the same philosophy of playing, the same [soccer] language. He can speak with Martin [Machon], he can speak with Mauricio. As far as his style of play, he fits quite well with us. With him, we might have found our formula to use when Mauricio is not on the field. He has the characteristics that can move a team. He gets involved and wants the ball all the time and wants to be the playmaker.

“Those are very important aspects. In addition, he can play any position in midfield--on the left, on the right, as the playmaker, he can even drop behind the playmaker. He’s a versatile player, a young player, a hungry player. He shoots very well from outside the 18-yard box, he’s not afraid. There are a lot of good things about this kid.”

At 5 feet 8 and 155 pounds, Sanchez is not going to present the intimidating threat of Hurtado, at 6-3 and 200 pounds, but he will be more mobile and he won’t eat up anywhere near as much of the salary cap.

Having earlier traded goalkeeper Jorge Campos and now Hurtado, the Galaxy is well positioned financially to bring in a fifth foreign player of some repute. Whether that turns out to be a player from Mexico in the near future or Germany’s Juergen Klinsmann after the World Cup, or some other name altogether, has yet to be determined.

In the meantime, the Galaxy no longer has “El Tanque,” and there are fans who will find the team not quite the same without him.

“I really wish the best for him,” Zambrano said. “I still think that he’s a good player. He has great talent and maybe in a new environment perhaps another coach will be able to bring the best out of him.”