FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Juan Agudelo spotted the comments Chivas USA coach José Luis "El Chelís" Sánchez Solá made to the media on Thursday about his trade to the New England Revolution, but he didn't really need to read them to understand what his former coach thought.
Agudelo said he spoke with Chelís before he left Southern California and discussed the circumstances behind the trade. Chelís told reporters on Thursday he did not receive notification of the deal before the Rojiblancos shipped Agudelo in exchange for an undisclosed amount of allocation money on Tuesday.
Those statements – as one might expect – matched up neatly with the chat Agudelo and Chelís had before the striker departed for Boston on Wednesday. Agudelo said he knew his former coach had little to do with the decision to send him to the Revolution.
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“I kind of knew it wasn't really him,” Agudelo told MLSsoccer.com. “It was a decision that was made maybe due to my lack of interest in re-signing. It was basically a business decision from the GM.”
The decision by Chivas USA paved the way for Agudelo to link up with his new teammates for the first time on Thursday and step out onto the Gillette Stadium field on Friday morning.
Agudelo arrived in New England with a left hamstring strain. The 20-year-old striker went through his paces on Friday morning, but he is not fully recovered from the knock.
“It's just the type of thing where I'm cautious because I do not want to be out for a longer time if I [re-injure] it,” Agudelo said. “Right now, I think it's a lot of a mental type of thing.”
READ: Agudelo both "shocked and excited" upon hearing about trade to the Revs
His status for Saturday's match against New York (7:30 pm ET, FREE on MLS Live) remains uncertain. Although Agudelo said he would like to feature against his former side, he is not sure whether Revolution coach Jay Heaps plans to include him in the matchday squad.
Heaps said on Friday morning that he plans to decide within the next 24 hours whether to name Agudelo in his squad for the affair.
“I'll see,” Agudelo said. “I told Jay that I feel great. It's still the coach's decision whether I'm in the 18 or not.”
