The Boca Juniors club made a surprising decision to terminate the contract of Venezuelan forward Jan Hurtado, who failed to establish himself in the team. The main reason behind this determination was the need to free up a foreign player slot in the squad.
Hurtado arrived at Boca in 2019 in an expensive operation carried out during the presidency of former club president Daniel Angelici. The club spent seven million dollars for his signing from Gimnasia La Plata, making him one of the most expensive acquisitions in the club's history. Subsequently, the player was loaned to Liga de Quito and, more recently, to Atlético Goianiense.
Despite several loan opportunities, each return of Hurtado implied a problem because he occupied a foreign player spot in Boca's roster. In his time at Bragantino in Brazil, where he spent three years with successive renewals, the club never exercised the purchase option. Despite the investment made, his time at Boca will be marked as a failed bet in the transfer market.
The forward left a negative balance at Boca: 18 games played and only two goals, one of them in a Superclásico against River Plate and the other against San Lorenzo. AFA regulations allow six foreigners in the squad, but only five can be included in a match sheet, which led the club to constantly seek a new destination for Hurtado in each transfer window in order to free up space.
Currently, Boca's coach, Fernando Gago, has the full quota of foreign players, which has generated difficulties in including all of them in the lineup for the same match. Despite isolated moments of performance, Hurtado failed to meet expectations and lost prominence in the team since the arrival of coach Miguel Ángel Russo in 2020.
