ST. LOUIS -- It's neat how things work out sometimes. Baggio Husidic, the junior midfielder/forward from the University of Illinois-Chicago, was one of the last players actually at the MLS SuperDraft to get selected Thursday. When that happens in the NBA or NFL, it can be kind of embarrassing for the player involved.
It was looking a little embarrassing for Husidic, too, until he heard the announcement that the Chicago Fire had made a trade with the Colorado Rapids to move up to the fifth spot in the second round. The Fire were not originally slated to make any pick in the draft until the 28th pick overall, because they traded their first-round pick to Toronto FC in the Brian McBride deal.
When the trade was announced, Husidic had a quick thought that maybe a dream had come true. When the announcement was made that the Fire had selected him, the dream became reality.
"I was hoping it was going to happen," Husidic said. "This is awesome, probably one of the best moments of my life."
In the third round, the Fire selected defender David Sias of California-Irvine, and with their two picks in the fourth round, the Fire got Jokull Elisabetarson from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro by way of Iceland, and Richard Jata of Campbell University.
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In an interview last week, Husidic made the politically incorrect statement that he wanted to stay close to home and get drafted by the Fire. Husidic was on his way to the MLS Player Combine, where coaches and general managers from all MLS teams were looking at players to select in the draft, and Husidic made it known he had a preference where he went.
"That's huge for us," Fire technical director Frank Klopas said.
As a Generation adidas player, he was on everyone's radar, and was invited to attend the SuperDraft proceedings at the Convention Center in St. Louis. The first round went by and Husidic was not selected.
"I wanted to go early, like in the first round, because that is usually where (Generation adidas players) go,' Husidic said. "But I'm happy the way it turned out. I have no complaints at all."
"When we got started, we said 'What part can we play in this?," Klopas said. "We made a great move to get a Generation adidas player, a kid who has a tremendous upside. And we needed to fill that gap in the middle."
That gap came when the Fire lost midfielder Stephen King in the expansion draft.
Husidic was born in Bosnia, moved to Germany with his family as a young child, then came to the United States at the age of 12. The family moved to Libertyville in suburban Chicago, and he ended up at the University or Illinois-Chicago, a little-known program that has grown into a nationally respected program.
Husidic helped. He scored 12 goals with seven assists in his three seasons and garnered Soccer America First Team honors. The attention earned him the lucrative Generation adidas tag, which was the next step in the dream that came true Thursday.
The Fire still had to make a deal to make it happen, and they did so by trading a player to be named later to Colorado to move up eight slots to get him. The Fire also received allocation money in the deal.
"I had no idea," Husidic said. "But when they announced the trade, I had a feeling it was going to happen."
"At 28, we weren't going to get the player that we wanted," Fire coach Denis Hamlett said. "The way it played out, he didn't have a good first two days at the combine, but showed what he was like on the third day. We got lucky to be able to make that trade at the last minute."
With their second pick of the draft, which was the 13th pick of the third round, the Fire selected Sias, a 6-1 lockdown defender.
"He reads the game well, and he is someone who can give us help in the middle and in the back on the right," Klopas said.
With their third pick, the Fire selected senior midfielder Jokull Elisabetarson of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. He is a native of Iceland, and played for the Iceland under-21 national team. He scored 12 goals with 10 assists in four years at Greensboro.
"He's a very good soccer player in the middle," Klopas said. "He was at the combine, and a lot of times the international players are not always the first to go. But he has experience with the U-21 team, he can cover a lot of field and he is a smart soccer player."
With the 58th overall pick, the 13th of the fourth and final round, the Fire selected Richard Jata of Campbell University, a 5-11 midfielder-forward from Port Richey, Fla. He scored 32 goals with 18 assists in four seasons, the first at Furman University.
Amazingly, Jata was still in the draft hall to the end, and came to the podium after he was announced, sporting a new Fire scarf. After a long speech when he admitted waiting that long to hear his name was difficult, yet promising he'd try and turn some heads and surprise some people, he did acknowledge he had been talking for some time.
"But I hope it's OK," he said, "because I've been sitting there an awfully long time waiting."
His late appearance and speech actually drove some observers to tears.
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