Cristian Espinosa is sold to San Jose Earthquakes

Cristian Espinosa, who had been on loan to the San Jose Earthquakes of MLS, has been sold to the California side. Terms aren’t known but MLS teams are typically not big payers, so I would guess something like €2.5m +/- €1m. (San Jose says it is a “club-record transfer fee” and have made him one of their Designated Players, so it’s at least €1.5m).

UPDATE—EPM says €2.3m plus variables.

Espinosa was signed by Villarreal back in the summer of 2016 from Argentina’s Huracán, at age 21. Espinosa’s was supposedly the last transfer that Sr. Cordón had arranged before he left to join Monaco. We paid €7.2m for him, but he never played for Villarreal. He was loaned to Alavés, where he hardly played, in part due to injury; we sent him to Valladolid, but he didn’t do a lot there either.

He went back to Argentina, on loan to Boca Juniors, in summer 2017, evidently in hopes that some home cooking would help him recover his game. That did not happen so much, with Boca allowing his loan to expire at the end of 2018. We almost immediately loaned him to San José, and there, he flourished.

Villarreal had signed him to a five-year deal, so the amount of his contract left to amortize was only a year and a half—so anything over €2.1m would be accounting profit. At any rate, we wish him well and we’re glad he’s flourishing in San Jose.