LA Galaxy trade for Pablo Mastroeni, the rights to Baggio Husidic

The LA Galaxy have announced a trade this morning with the Colorado Rapids, giving up an international spot through the 2014 season and their natural second round draft pick in the 2014 MLS SuperDraft for the Rapids' Pablo Mastroeni and the rights to midfielder Baggio Husidic. This leaves the Galaxy with one open international spot.

Mastroeni has made 222 appearances with the Colorado Rapids, and has gone 305 minutes this year after missing almost all of 2012 with concussion symptoms. The Argentina born midfielder has been in the league since 1998 when he was drafted by the now defunct Miami Fusion.

He became a US citizen in 2001, and began making appearances with the national team shortly after that. He has 65 caps with the US national team, most recently playing in 2009 World Cup Qualifiers.

While in the immediate future the LA Galaxy get a midfield player who could alleviate a few Hector Jimenez starts down the line, of more impact might be the acquisition of Baggio Husidic's rights. The 26 year old Yugoslavian born midfielder left the Chicago Fire in 2011 for Swedish side Hammarby IF. Husidic came out of college as a Generation adidas player, but graduated out of the program after crossing the 2,000 minute mark.

As for Mastroeni, he suffered a hamstring injury earlier in the year. Hamstring injuries are always hard to shake, combine that with missing a year due to concussion and it's not probably that LA will get much out of Mastroeni in the long term. If he can shore up the midfield for a few weeks, and if Arena knows Husidic is planning a move back to MLS when the transfer window opens, this could work out quite well.