Red Stars get perfect "match" in franchise players
Add a little soccer to one of those Internet dating sites and you'd get what is known as "allocation" in Women's Professional Soccer.
On Tuesday, the seven teams in the brand-new league, which kicks off play next spring, were essentially given their foundations when they were each allocated three players from the Olympic gold-medal-winning U.S. national soccer team.
The folks at a place like match.com would have been proud.
The WPS used the most basic dating service philosophy when doing the assignments: make good matches.
All of the teams in the league were required to list the top five players from the national team of interest to them. The national team players were asked to name the top three teams they would be interested in joining.
The Chicago Red Stars found out that their best "matches" were Carli Lloyd, who nailed the winning goal in the gold-medal game, Kate Markgraf and Lindsay Tarpley - all of whom listed Chicago as their top destination.
Red Stars head coach Emma Hayes believes Chicago got such strong consideration because she and the Red Stars "sold it" as effectively as any good personal ad would sell Mr. or Miss Right.
Although WPS team officials were not allowed to personally contact national team players this summer while they were busy with their Olympic obligations, the officials were able to reach out to the players in other ways. And Hayes tried a little bit of everything.
"We wanted to be very visible," Hayes said. "We did some stuff with Facebook, I made video diaries. I got my own page on a women's soccer fan Web site and I posted photos of me going out to team events. I did some blogging on there, too.
"We wanted to reach out to the players in ways that we know they use."
Hayes said that she felt like she was back coaching college ball at Iona - one of her most recent stops before landing in Chicago. The recruiting side of her kicked, in and she found herself talking up every little positive thing she could think of about Chicago and the franchise.
"You had to show off your selling points so that players wanted to come here," Hayes said. "I wanted to talk about Chicago as a city, with all of its architecture and culture, and as a sports town. I talked about Toyota Park being a soccer-specific stadium, the fan base, the quality of the organization, the type of soccer we'll play."
And since style and philosophy really come down to the personality of the coach, Hayes says that selling herself was just as important as anything."
"I definitely talked a lot about my philosophy, the types of players I like, why I like them, and the types of things I like to do and why. I also showed a little bit about my character and my personality," said Hayes, a London native and a bubbly 31-year-old with a wry sense of humor. "We really wanted them to know everything. We wanted to them to feel, as much as possible, what it would be like to be a Red Star."
Terrific trio: Here's a quick look at the players that the Red Stars were allocated: Carli Lloyd, a star at Rutgers, played every minute of all six Olympic Games this summer. She's known as an attacking midfielder. Kate Markgraf, a defender, was a four-year starter at Notre Dame and the defensive most valuable player of the 1995 NCAA Final Four. She started five games in Beijing. Lindsay Tarpley, a forward, played in the heralded North Carolina program. She scored a goal in the gold-medal game and, according to Hayes, "has a nose for the goal that you just can't teach."
Big event: See Carli Lloyd, Kate Markgraf, Lindsay Tarpley and the rest of the U.S. women's national team as they take on Ireland at 7 p.m. tonight at Toyota Park. Tickets range from $18-$150.
pbabcock@dailyherald.com