Union loan Joaquín Torres to Chile’s Universidad Católica

Torres' 2023 season wasn't quite a bust, but it wasn't what he or the team hoped for. While the Union gain from getting his salary off the books, they're now short of backups for Dániel Gazdag.

Joaquín Torres (left) had an underwhelming season with the Union last year.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

by Jonathan Tannenwald

Published Feb. 16, 2024, 12:27 p.m. ET

The Union are loaning versatile-but-underused attacker Joaquín Torres to Chilean club Universidad Católica, a source with knowledge of the deal told The Inquirer.

The yearlong deal won’t make any money for the Union, but it will get his salary off the books. The 27-year-old earned $309,800 last season and presumably had a raise coming. Universidad has a purchase option it can take when the loan ends.

News of the move first emerged in Torres’ native Argentina on Thursday night, and Universidad manager Nico Núñez hinted Friday that it will be official soon.

Torres came to the Union last winter from CF Montréal as one of three signings sporting director Ernst Tanner made from within MLS. The Union had a lot of bonus cap space that was set to expire, so that’s how Tanner used it. The Union paid $500,000 split over last year and this year and offered $300,000 more based on performance incentives.

It’s not known if those incentives were met, but the odds are they weren’t. Though Torres played in 23 games last year, he usually was a late-game substitute. After starting the year with a goal and an assist in his first three games, he didn’t score again for the rest of the year and had just one more assist.

Torres is naturally a winger, but the Union don’t play with wingers. So he was played as a forward or attacking midfielder and tried to adapt. It didn’t always go well, including when manager Jim Curtin said in September that he didn’t like Torres’ practice habits.

At some point between then and November, that dynamic got better. When the Union needed a spark in their playoff game at New England, Curtin turned to Torres to deliver it — and notably changed his tactics to a 4-2-3-1 setup that fit Torres well. He stepped up, Curtin praised him for it afterward, and Torres thanked his boss for the endorsement.

Had Torres stayed in town this year, he might have been Dániel Gazdag’s chief backup at the top of the team’s usual midfield diamond. Then again, it’s understandable if he’d like to be more than that at this point in his career.

Who backs up Gazdag now is a question that matters, because he’ll likely go to the European Championship with Hungary in the summer. It will help if the Union sign marquee prospect David Vázquez, but he’s still just 17. Perhaps it will be Quinn Sullivan, but he seems ticketed for a deeper central midfield role.

That leaves academy products Jeremy Rafanello and Nick Pariano, ages 23 and 20 respectively (and with lower ceilings), as the other candidates at the moment.