The San Jose Earthquakes made official on April 25, 2024, that Hernán López Muñoz is joining the club following a reported $6 million transfer, plus incentives. Photo courtesy of the San Jose Earthquakes.
The San Jose Earthquakes made the biggest transfer signing in team history last week, spending a reported $6 million to bring Hernán López over from Godoy Cruz. The 23-year-old attacking midfielder is unique in club history. Not just because of his price tag but also his skillset: they have never had someone so young, so creative, and so tenacious in Black & Blue.
Before this move, I had been somewhat resigned as a blogger. The team signed Cristian Espinoza before the 2019 season and…never really made the choice to support him with top-level attacking talent. Or, for that matter, defensive talent. After watching the team flatline under a new coach in the second half of 2023 (going 2 wins, 6 draws, 5 losses from Leagues Cup onwards, sliding into a play-in game defeat where they failed to register a shot on target), I went into 2024 with very low expectations. San Jose has tripped over every single rake laid out for them so far, with 1 win against 8 losses and a tie as they get a quarter of the way through the season.
With a morbund team that called 33-year-old Norwegian Amahl Pellegrino their big offseason acquisition, this is a team that was begging to be ignored. The signing of a young left-footed Argentine with a highlight reel and Copa Libertadores minutes is a signal that these Quakes very much want you to give them another shot. With the Oakland A’s about to skip town (thanks to the Earthquakes owner, it should be said) and the Giants mired in mediocrity, the Quakes are betting that Hernán makes the team appointment viewing. My blogging sense is, it’s worth giving the team, as awful as they have been so far, the eyeballs they are begging for. If you spend a decade screaming for a young attacking midfielder Latin American Designated Player, the least you could do is offer 1,000 minutes to see if he’s worth it. And if not, your library holds list will still be there come August.
So what kind of player is Hernán? He has a unique profile: lots of take-ons and not so much passing, it’s tough to get a sense of how much of that is playing for a team lining up Portland Timbers washout Tomas Conechny in the attack. Comparing Hernán to former Quakes players, he seems to have the dribbling instincts of Vako, the left foot of La Chofis, and the workrate/defensive meanness of Jamiro Monteiro. He’ll be given a much more attacking role for the Quakes than he did with Godoy Cruz: similar to that of Gio Reyna in Luchi’s beloved USMNT-style setup.
The idea, I think, is that Hernán can catalyze attacking transitions much more quickly than anyone else. If he gets the ball at midfield from Jackson Yueill, Hernan can break through defenses much more quickly than the current midfield setup, he can hit Espinoza in transition to find Pellegrino on pullbacks or Jeremy Ebobisse lurking in the box. The more the Earthquakes can prove they can move fast, the fewer opposing teams can send 8 guys forward knowing they’re safe in the back.
There is also a hope that Hernán’s ball retention capabilities will help in the defensive half: fewer turnovers from botched clearances and more contested 50/50 balls would mean that the Quakes very-porous defense would be under less pressure. In this phase of the game, maybe Hernán can play a role similar to his compatriot Eric Remedi did. Or even better, be a Darlington Nagbe-esque retention monster.
One thing I don’t think Hernán will do is push out Niko Tsakiris. As has been mentioned by my colleagues Alex Morgan and Jamon Moore quite often, Niko is more of an “8” than a true 10: he’s great at shifting the point of attack and sharing some of those retention duties than being a Final Pass type. Indeed, I think that by the time Hernán is fully incorporated the Quakes will be leaning on a Yueill-Tsakiris-Hernán midfield trio. Yueill’s positional awareness and abilities in transition far outstrip his weaknesses in defense. Even in a defense as weak as this.
I would also bet that Niko isn’t going anywhere in the long term. In fact, if there’s someone who won’t be part of the 2026 Earthquakes side, it’s more likely to be Hernán who departs than Niko. It’s just so rare to see American, MLS-based, central midfielders leave for Europe. The only two that really come to mind in recent memory are Venezia’s Gianluco Busio and Tanner Tessman (who, to be fair, are killing it in Serie B). Niko’s left foot and Greek citizenship may give him a shot, but creative Argentines are just always going to be in higher demand.
In the here-and-now, though, the biggest issue with the Earthquakes is the defense. Basic communications breakdowns, slow decisionmaking, and general ennui have been killing this team and can’t be papered over by a high-price #10. Sure there’s excuses to be made: nobody would look great on their third goalkeeper, maybe, and new signee Bruno Wilson has been solid when healthy (Vitor Costa…not so much). If things are still brutal by the July window despite the Hernán signing, or Homegrown Emi Ochoa has a great Open Cup campaign, maybe Leitch makes a move to shore things up.
Hernán is not going to be enough to make this a playoff team, barring a miracle better suited for his great-uncle Maradona. He ought to be able to make this team interesting, which would be a first for the Luchi Gonzalez era. Let us find out if that bet will pay off for the Earthquakes.
