LA Galaxy Gain Rights To Negotiate With Juan Pablo Angel In Re-Entry Draft

LA Galaxy Midfielder Jovan Kirovski has been resigned, after the Galaxy had opted not to renew his contract before the Re-Entry draft. From the press release:

The LA Galaxy announced today that they have re-signed midfielder Jovan Kirovski to a one-year contract. Per team and league regulations, details of the contract were not released.

Currently in his second stint with the Galaxy, Kirovski has played in more than 100 games for Los Angeles in all competitions since originally joining the club in 2004. He played for the club throughout the 2004 campaign before being traded to Colorado in September 2005. A native of Escondido, Calif., he re-joined the Galaxy, from San Jose, in November 2008 and has appeared in more than 50 games for the club over the past two seasons.

Capable of playing in the midfield or up front, Kirovski finished third on the club in scoring in 2010, tallying four goals and two assists in 21 games. Two of those four goals came in a 4-1 home win over Houston on June 5, giving him the first multi-goal game of his MLS career since the 2007 season. Kirovski scored the first of his two goals after just 47 seconds in the win over the Dynamo, making it the third fastest goal in club history.

A veteran of the U.S. National Team, Kirovski collected 62 caps in an 11-year international career that began in 1994. A majority of those appearances came with current Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena in charge of the National Team, as did five of the nine goals that he tallied for the Red, White and Blue.

In what has been a busy day for the LA Galaxy, they pulled off one of their old tricks again giving forward Tristan Bowen to Chivas USA for allocation money. Earlier this year, the Galaxy made the same move with Alan Gordon. Tristan is only nineteen years old and a product of the LA Galaxy’s Youth Academy. He was the first player ever to take advantage of the rule allowing teams to sign players from their youth academies without going through the amateur Superdraft.

If Bowen is transferred outside of MLS, the Galaxy and Chivas USA would split all club revenue from transfer fees evenly. In 2009 Bowen made stops with lower division clubs Hollywood United and Miami FC. 2010 say Bowen make 10 starts up top with Edson Buddle, while he looked better in seven appearances off the bench.

The Galaxy finished the Re-Entry draft selecting Juan Pablo Angel and Luke Sassano with the fifth and fourteen selections. However, the Galaxy weren’t nearly done.

Following the completion of the Re-Entry Process, the Galaxy traded the rights to Sassano to Sporting Kansas City in exchange for the rights to Frankie Hejduk, who Sporting had selected with the #8 pick in the first round of the Re-Entry Process from Columbus.

Midfielder Frankie Hejduk has made 85 appearances for the US National Team, though he was not on the 2010 World Cup Roster. Since 2003 he has played for the Columbus Crew, making 147 appearances and scoring 7 goals over that span. The 36 year old is a Southern California native.

The club now has seven days to extend contract offers with Angel and Hejduk. If the Galaxy cannot reach an agreement with either player in that time, the club will hold the right of first refusal for that player in MLS.

Hejduk is an MLS original, having debuted for the Tampa Bay Mutiny in 1996. Primarily an outside back, the 36-year-old former UCLA star spent three seasons with the Mutiny before moving to Germany with Bayer Leverkusen following the 1998 FIFA World Cup. After four years in Germany, Hejduk joined FC St. Gallen in Switzerland in September 2002.