CARSON, Calif. – Pablo Mastroeni isn't ready to hang up his boots just yet, but he needs to mull over his family's situation and figure things out with LA Galaxy brass before he knows what next year will bring.
The 37-year-old midfielder, acquired in mid-June from the Colorado Rapids, made a dozen first-team competitive appearances for LA, with three starts each in MLS and the CONCACAF Champions League, and he says he hopes he will return to the Galaxy in 2014.
“[Retirement has] definitely crossed my mind, but physically I just feel so good, and being a part of this organization the last few months I've really enjoyed, and it's kind of invigorated my passion for the game again,” Mastroeni said Tuesday. “[Playing for the Galaxy] would be the best-case scenario for me. That's what I'm hoping for.
“I'm going to have to hang them up eventually some time, and I just hope, the way I feel and the way my desire is, I can continue doing it.”
Mastroeni is out of contract and in discussions with Galaxy head coach and general manager Bruce Arena, but before that can be worked out, he needs to get his family to Southern California – if they determine that's the right place for them.
Mastroeni's wife and two children remain in Denver, and he says he's “trying to get them to move out here.”
A sticking point is their house, which has been on the market for several months but hasn't sold.
He says he's “in no-man's land,” that he's facing “probably the toughest two weeks I've spent here, trying to figure all these things out, but I think in the end it will work out the way it should.”
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He and his wife have been in Colorado for 12 years, and their kids are back in school there. Picking up and moving west isn't as simple as it sounds.
“Anything you do as a group, as a family, it makes things so much easier for everyone,” Mastroeni said. “I look forward to settling that in the next couple of weeks, and if we have to move without the house being sold, then we'll do that.
“That's not the biggest thing. It's just about the mind set of everyone in the family and making sure that this is the direction we want to move in, because once we move out here, there's no moving back to Colorado. It's going to be a big decision for everybody.”
