MOVING ON Gomez on the Colorado trade
By Andrea Canales LASoccerNews.com Associate Editor
Herculez Gomez scored five goals in his final season with the Galaxy. Photo by Linda Cuttone/Sports Vue Images
It just delayed the inevitable, but when the call came in to let forward Herculez Gomez know he’d been traded from the Los Angeles Galaxy, the only Major League Soccer team he’d ever played for, he ignored it.
“My phone kept ringing,” Gomez recalled. “I'm not a morning person. It was ringing really early, and I didn't pick up. I knew it was the office. I just figured it was an appearance. I figured they'd leave a message. It kept ringing and ringing, and I finally picked up. The secretary said that Alexi (Lalas) had requested to speak to me. She asked me to come in as soon as possible.”
Coincidentally, the other player involved in the trade, defender Ugo Ihemelu, already knew his fate, though he hadn’t been told the whole story.
Gomez described, “I got ready and I was walking downstairs, and I saw Ugo, who is my roommate, walking through the door. He was talking to Troy (Roberts), my other roommate. Troy was saying, ‘What?’ Ugo told Troy that he had just been traded. I’d said something to Troy earlier about Alexi wanting to see me, so Troy started yelling my name. He said, ‘Herc, Ugo just got traded.’ I asked, ‘For who?’ Ugo said, ‘Alexi wouldn't tell me.’ So I knew then and there that I was part of the deal. It just would be a little unethical for Alexi to tell Ugo without me knowing first.”
The three young Galaxy players had joined the team in 2005 (in Gomez’ case, rejoined) and Ihemelu and Gomez had played crucial roles in winning the double titles of MLS Cup and the Open Cup that year, while Roberts worked himself into the lineup more regularly in 2006. Now, two members of the trio would be leaving.
“I walked into Alexi's office, and he said, ‘This is never easy,’” remembered Gomez. “I said, ‘Just tell me where’. He said, ‘Colorado.’”
The LA Galaxy’s general manager may have had a pang of regret about the deal.
“He said, ‘I had the pleasure to see you mature as a player and a person. Truth be told, if history holds true, you’ll come back and score three goals on us.’”
Though he realized it wouldn’t change his situation, Gomez was curious about the details,
“I also said, ‘For whom?’ And that's when he told me, ‘You and Ugo for Joe Cannon.’”
Gomez thanked Lalas and departed.
“The whole thing took about three minutes. I walked out, and on my way back there was a phone call from Charlie Wright, the GM of Colorado. He seemed like a very nice guy. Everybody from the Colorado organization has already called and they seem like good people. It definitely caught me off-guard, but it's definitely good to know that you’re looked at in that way, where they would give up a player of Joe's caliber.”
Though he was surprised at the trade, Gomez wasn’t exactly shocked.
“Let's be honest, there’s one guy on that team who is protected, and that's Landon [Donovan],” Gomez stated. “That's not a big surprise. All the other guys on the roster are, I don't want to say obsolete, but expendable in a way. They protected me (from the expansion draft) because they know I still have a little bit of trade value. They were smart about it. I know how it goes. This is a job. I had a feeling that there might be a movement, but to be honest, I had no idea that it would be Colorado.”
It was some consolation to Gomez that he wasn’t going alone.
“Ugo and I get along, so it worked out perfectly for us. I know that Ugo is disappointed. I'm extremely disappointed to leave, it's a great organization, with great fans, but I'm looking forward to new adventures, to making new friends, and starting a new thing.”
Gomez was anticipating fitting in with the Rapids.
“Both Charlie and Fernando [Clavijo, the Colorado Rapids’ coach] were very adamant about mine and Ugo’s contribution to the team. They told us they brought us in for a reason. Charlie said, ‘I'm going to be very honest with you -- usually when people call here and they're looking to trade for somebody, it's usually for Pablo [Mastroeni] or for Joe. We wanted to make sure that if one of those two left, we would get something.’ He told me that he felt it was a steal, so it made me feel good that he sees us in that light.”
The support fueled Gomez’s resolve.
“I'm definitely going in with intentions of being that player and doing great things for the club and helping them in any way I can. I've always been a goal scorer and I want to get back to that. For all the things I did in LA, it was definitely going to be a lot harder to continue down that route here.”
Ironically, the move to Colorado reunites Gomez with the player his goalscoring exploits first replaced on the Galaxy roster, Jovan Kirovski.
“We have nothing against each other,” declared Gomez. “I think he's a good guy. It's just business. But I did think to myself, this guy is probably thinking, ‘Man, I can’t get away from this guy. He keeps following me around.’”
Focused on fulfilling his own potential, Gomez didn’t bother to anticipate the competition he might have at forward for the Rapids.
“I'm not going to worry about things like that,” he said. “If I play the way I'm supposed play, then I'm going to start. If I don't, then I'm not going to start. It doesn't matter if who is there. They could bring in Ronaldo. If Ronaldo is not playing up to par, then somewhere along the line, I’ll get a chance.
He paused, then chuckled. “Actually, maybe not.”
With the Galaxy, Gomez lost his own starting spot for a while this season after getting stalled on four goals. Alan Gordon worked his way in, fitting into coach Frank Yallop’s scheme as a target forward.
“You’ve got to keep working hard,” explained Gomez. “For example, in the last game of the season, [I got a chance]. Gordon's a good friend of mine, and I just sat back quietly, supported the team. Unfortunately for Gordy, he went down during the warm-up and I stepped in.”
Gomez earned two assists and scored a goal in the match versus FC Dallas.
“It's stuff like that that shows you that you still have what it takes to compete. I was patient and I think I had a good game against Dallas. It was definitely something that showed that I still have a lot in me.”
Any forward will admit that confidence is a major factor in scoring goals. Circumstances had conspired to shake Gomez’ self-belief during the season following the one in which he worked his way up from the leading goalscorer in the reserve team to scoring eleven goals with the first team and contributing six US Open Cup goals to the Galaxy.
“I kept hearing this stuff about ‘sophomore slump,’” said Gomez. “There was a big difference in the amount of confidence for my first season and the amount of confidence I had this last year. You get thrown into a different situation. There was the loss of Doug, the loss of Steve [Sampson], there was a new coach, there were players leaving, friends leaving, being put in different positions, and having to get accustomed to playing with different people and under a different system. It's not an easy thing. Playing with Landon can make you a better player, but it's not necessarily the easiest thing, either. There's a lot of extra responsibility that comes with that. It's just a lot of areas got tougher.”
The situation became a growing experience for Gomez.
“I matured through it. I did all the things that a professional should do, things that the coaching staff and other coaches I’ve had in the past would be very proud of in terms of how I handled it. I definitely learned more from this last year then I did my first year. My first year was a lot of success and last year wasn’t as much. You learn more from falling down and failing than you do from succeeding. It’s definitely made me stronger as a person and as a player.”
One perk that Gomez could appreciate about his move was that the Colorado Rapids will start off the 2007 season in their new soccer-specific stadium.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to be here at the Home Depot Center’s opening and just the buzz around the stadium with everybody and the players, knowing that you’re in a stadium built just for you and trying to establish a tradition there is great. It’s something that I can finally start on my own. When I came into LA, I had to wait patiently. Now [Colorado has] shown me that they want me to be a big part of the organization, and it’s finally a chance for me to start off on the right foot and God willing, have a whole complete season.”
Looking back at his time with the Galaxy, Gomez didn’t hesitate when asked what his fondest memory was.
“The fans,” Gomez admitted. “My dad, all he’s ever wanted for me was to be able to play. For him to come down (Gomez’ father first saw him play for the Galaxy in the friendly versus Real Madrid) and when they call my name, it’s probably one of the loudest cheers in the stadium, for him to hear that, that’s definitely one of the memories that I’ll take with me. [The fans] have just shown me so much love and respect. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay that. I think ’05 still wasn’t enough to show how much it meant to me.”
