Watt ready to prove herself with the Red Stars
Few things offer a better introduction to Chicago than apartment hunting in the biting January cold.
A first-time trip to Portillo’s might be an exception — but more on that later.
Kealia Watt was the Red Stars’ marquee offseason addition, acquired Jan. 6 from the Houston Dash in exchange for defender Katie Naughton and a draft pick.
It was an opportunity for Watt to get a fresh start and rebuild a career that made her one of the best wide players in the National Women’s Soccer League before she suffered an ACL tear during a game in Orlando and faced coaching changes.
After finding an apartment, Watt returned to Houston for offseason training and returned to Chicago in March for the start of the preseason.
That’s when things got “very, very weird” because of the coronavirus pandemic and the league’s decision to cancel the preseason and delay games, eventually culminating in the NWSL Challenge Cup. The Red Stars lost 2-1 to the Washington Spirit in their Challenge Cup opener Saturday and are preparing for their next match against the Portland Thorns at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday. All matches will air on CBS All Access except for the championship, which will be broadcast on WKMG-6.
“When everything started it was the weekend, and we thought we literally would have the weekend off and we would be back in on Monday, that everything would just blow over,” Watt told the Chicago Tribune. “But then two months later we were still in quarantine. It was wild to have soccer taken away from us, and trying to train on our own was difficult.”
The wait for a decision went on for months, long enough for Watt to hang tight in Chicago for a few weeks, return to her home in Houston and then make the return trip a few weeks after that.
“The original date was a couple of weeks, so we waited until then and then we waited a little longer and then I finally went back to Houston to train,” she said. “All of it was pretty weird timing, and throughout we didn’t have a firm date of when we’d be back. You would train and think, ‘OK, I have three weeks until we get back,’ so you schedule your training for that. And then a few days before that, they would delay it more.
“It was such a weird time. The whole world was having such a difficult time.”
Now that the NWSL is back, Watt finally gets the chance to prove herself with her new team.
It’s also an opportunity for the Red Stars to unveil a new attack that will try to replace Sam Kerr, the record-setting striker and league MVP who moved to English side
Chelsea after the NWSL season.
Watt, a wide forward, figures to be a key component of the attack with fellow newcomers Rachel Hill, a former Orlando Pride player, and Makenzy Doniak. And though none is a like-for-like replacement for Kerr — who scored 34 goals in 40 games with the Red Stars — the additions should see the team implement a more dynamic approach, coach Rory Dames said.
“We have to attack a little differently,” he said. “We’ll have to methodically build an attack and be less transitional and be able to get more numbers to sustain pressure higher up for longer periods of time to create more chances.
“You’re never happy to lose a player like Sam for a multitude of reasons, but it’s also exciting to be able to evolve the style a little bit and see where it takes us.”
Dames said the trio offers versatility and flexibility the Red Stars lacked last season when they lost 4-0 in the NWSL final to the North Carolina Courage. Dames said, each has something to prove.
“They’re all very different but they all give us something we didn’t have last year,” Dames said. “They’re all players who … probably have a little chip on their shoulder to gain recognition for how good they are and for Kealia to get back into that form she had a few years ago.”
Watt was the league’s co-leading scorer with 11 goals in 2016. The next season, however, she tore her left ACL, and between returning from injury and two head coaching changes, the 2018 and 2019 seasons didn’t go as planned.
The move for Watt, 28, was a long time coming: Dames said the Red Stars tried to acquire her last season. The feeling was mutual, and when Watt approached the Dash after the 2019 season about a trade, she requested a move to Chicago.
“I’ve always wanted to play for Chicago and to play for Rory,” Watt said. “They’ve been incredible every year. I would absolutely dread playing them.”
The decision to leave the Dash wasn’t easy. She was the team captain, and Houston is where she and her husband, Texans defensive end J.J. Watt, call home.
But it was a necessary move to rebuild her career.
“It was a hard thing because Houston is very much my home, and I loved my time with the Dash,” Watt said. “But I was at a point in my career that I was not growing anymore. I really needed a new environment and something new. Chicago was exactly where I wanted to get to. I’m really excited just to be able to play this year.”
If there was any doubt Red Stars fans are just as excited, go back to January when J.J. Watt tweeted a photo of a Portillo’s carryout bag. It was Kealia’s first time having food from the Chicago-based restaurant chain, and Twitter, excuse the pun, ate it up by having fun with the situation — and one unfortunate headline from a Houston TV station — by referring to J.J. as “Kealia Ohai’s fiance.”
The moniker has been a running gag since, so much so that J.J. Watt had “Mr. Kealia Watt” embroidered on his suit collar for the couple’s wedding in February.
As for that Portillo’s order and her introduction to Chicago eats, Watt had a hot dog, cheese fries and a slice of chocolate eclair cake.
Any good?
“When everybody was freaking out about it, I was like, OK, I see what the hype is about,” she said, laughing. “It was really good.”