The departure of Eduard Lowen, whose time with City SC combined both his excellence on the field with publicly having to deal with his wife鈥檚 battle with brain cancer, became official Wednesday as the team announced his trade to the San Jose Earthquakes.
With the move, City SC parted company with not just someone who was the team鈥檚 best player in its first three seasons but who did it while playing under the shadow of his wife鈥檚 illness and, in March, death. All of that made Lowen one of the most popular and beloved players on the team, which made for an especially difficult decision for sporting director Corey Wray, the man charged with rebuilding the club after two years missing the playoffs.
鈥淒efinitely tough,鈥 Wray told the Post-Dispatch.
Lowen leaves as the club鈥檚 all-time leader in goal contributions, with 20 goals and 27 assists in the regular season, and his skills on corner kicks and free kicks made him the rare player on the team who could summon a goal chance all by himself. He was also active in the community, making appearances on behalf of the club until shortly before his transfer.
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鈥淔rom the moment I arrived, this city and club welcomed me and my family with open arms,鈥 Lowen said, via the club. 鈥淚鈥檝e had the privilege of experiencing some unforgettable moments here 鈥 moments I鈥檒l carry with me for the rest of my life. I want to thank the owners for the opportunity to represent this club and their constant support, as well as my teammates, coaches, and every staff member behind the scenes. And most importantly, to the fans 鈥 thank you for your incredible support and love for me. 最新杏吧原创 will always be an important part of my story and I wish the club nothing but the best. Thank you for everything, 最新杏吧原创!鈥
And while Wray realizes the important place Lowen holds in the club鈥檚 past and present 鈥 鈥淓du has meant a lot to this club and to the people of 最新杏吧原创. 鈥 Edu is beloved by everyone around the club and has earned the respect of our supporters and so many others around the world through his character, strength and resilience,鈥 he said聽鈥 he also knows the bigger challenge is the future.
Soccer may be called jogo bonito, 鈥渢he beautiful game,鈥 but it鈥檚 also a business and, at times, a particularly unforgiving one. Lowen was the third-oldest field player on the team, behind center backs Lukas MacNaughton and Timo Baumgartl, and will be 30 at the start of next season. He started the season as the fourth-highest-paid player on the team at $1.444 million and, with the departure of Marcel Hartel and Cedric Teuchert and the arrival of Carlo Holse, was third at the time of his trade.
But for Lowen to get a raise, it would likely require him to be a designated player, which would prevent the club from being able to use that to bring in the big goal-scorer the team has been so far unsuccessful in acquiring. With Lowen in the final year of his contract, this was the time to move him and get the best possible return. City SC will get $425,000 of general allocation money and $500,000 of general allocation money in add-ons from San Jose if performance metrics are achieved.
As Wray continues the process of turning the club around, it became harder to fit Lowen into the team鈥檚 salary structure at a price that worked for both sides. Under new coach Yoann Damet, Lowen was used more as an attacking midfielder rather than as the box-to-box central midfielder he had been when he was the engine of the team鈥檚 attack over its first three seasons.
鈥淥bviously, went through the worst part of it with him,鈥 Wray told the Post-Dispatch. 鈥淲as at the funeral, tried our best to support the guy as much as possible. But ultimately, we're still in a building phase of the team, and we're trying to align many different pieces of the team as much as possible. And (Lowen) coming back from the whole situation and wanting clarity, our timelines were not matched exactly, and so then we have to figure out what makes the most sense while working with the player, while working with the head coach on what's best for the club and making a decision for what's best for everybody. We thought this was what's best for us.鈥
鈥淚 can tell you, Edu is very excited about the opportunity as well. And so for us, it鈥檚 difficult because of the history, but we're ultimately trying to move forward with what we're doing with this project, and if the player is not necessarily guaranteed the things that you would like as far as the team 鈥 or potentially contract status or whatever 鈥 then we have to do what's best. 鈥 I'm not disregarding the emotional attachment of the fans, but we're really trying to create structure and squad balance and profile balance that makes sense for us, not just for this year but also for the future. But working with the player to do that as best as we can is also something that we felt like was important and just landed in the right place, I think, for all parties.鈥
The move comes at an awkward time for the team, as it has an 11-game unbeaten streak in league play, the longest in club history and one of the longest in MLS over the past 10 seasons. The club is contending for a playoff spot, something that it was thought might take a season to approach as Wray and Damet made over the team. The league鈥檚 summer transfer window has also been marked by the departure of the team鈥檚 best field player, Hartel, whose departure was necessitated with the player expressing a need to return to Germany for personal reasons and not something Wray would have done otherwise. With a week to go in the transfer window, Holse and Alex Matan are the main new faces, along with some signings of young players to bolster the club鈥檚 development system, but the fanbase has been hoping for more.
鈥淚 guess,鈥 Wray said, 鈥渢he question is: Would you rather just be good right now and then be bad again in the next couple years because we have a lot of constraints or a limited amount of flexibility? I want to be a consistent contender for the next five years, and these are the types of moves you need to do to advance that. And so, without any disrespect to any of the guys who have left, these are players approaching their twilight years, being replaced by players in their prime. And if I'm talking about a plan that we're supposed to be good for the next five years, ultimately that makes a bit more sense in my head, despite the immediate production people see that these players are doing. I would rather advance the long-term vision to make sure we're good like this every single year and have a core group of players that are getting better every year than potentially not.鈥
The transfer window isn鈥檛 closed, so Wray still has time to bring in a player, like the goal-scoring forward that has long been at the top of his list.
鈥淲e're trying to add as much as we can,鈥 he said. 鈥淪ome things are in our control, some things out. But ultimately, like the discipline for the fans to know, we don't want to ruin this positive progress that we made just because now we think we got to risk it all tomorrow. That's the hardest part for me and the coach is making sure that we don't mess up this build in a way that's going to hurt us in the future. So if we find the right one, we have support and ambition from ownership. We have alignment on the positional needs and targets from the coaching staff, but it takes two, sometimes three people to tango in these things with agents and outside forces.
鈥淏ut certainly, doing well and being competitive and being in the (Open) Cup semifinals has been an easier conversation for us than maybe at the start of the year when you ask people to just trust we're going to be competitive. Now we are, so it definitely helps.鈥
