Ghana was his worst game and the last game, ergo, he had a bad World Cup. Of course you have to ignore that he played well the first 3 matches other than missing the bounce that almost allowed Algeria to score in the first 5 minutes and that he was a 30 year old dinged up centerback playing in his 4th match in 2 weeks. As I said in another thread, DP money for Demerit is a good short term and long term investment. As an expansion team they're unlikely to use all 3 DP slots on high-paid attackers in their first season. This way they get a leader in the back and leverage in the future. At 31 or 32, he's not likely to get a higher paying job outside of MLS and Vancouver can bump him down from a DP salary like KC did with Lopez.
Interesting! Hanging out with the team, even if he's not training. No big surprise, I guess. Not sure what's going to happen to Jay...
just because he's not on the roster doesn't mean he won't be training with the team. Bradley may be allowing him to work out with the team since he's only able to do individual stuff currently.
DeMerit's home isn't too far away from Chicago.....right? Green Bay to Chicago. What is that? A 3 hour drive. Plus, the guy went to IUC for college. Not a big surprise to seem him there with the USMNT. Jay DeMerit will be in MLS in 2011. I bet he'll be announced as Vancouver's first signing. That's the team that he's been linked to in the press.
hmm...myself being a jay fan, i still don't think DP money is a good investment. you can get a roughly equivalent player for 250Kish, and one that is probably younger and less injury prone. its hard to imagine jay getting paid more than kasey keller, for example, and kasey has had a huge sounders impact on and off the field.
I suppose we could just be an injury away from him playing some place interesting? Or there should be plenty of shuffling when the transfer window opens. Will be increasingly complicated if there are two American center-backs on the market. It would be sad if he missed the whole season! Even if it was for the beginning of MLS and not e.g. 12 months off.
I just read in Soccer America that "Jay DeMerit is unemployed". So DeMerit has been out of contract since-- do I have it right-- Jun-2010? I'm just curious why he wasn't renewed and no one nabbed him right away. He looked a bit slow at WC2010. Has his eye injury not resolved completely? Is he asking too much money? Lost favor with his EPL manager? Playing too much music? Taking time off? If we're talking no playing time until MLS 2011 season, that sounds like maybe too much time off, which generally speaking isn't good for a player.
His contract was not renewed at Watford simply because they could not afford him given their economic woes. It's been noted Watford has a butt load of debt and they were in desperate need of trimming wages which equated to selling some players and not renewing contracts. Jay's departure had nothing to do with loosing favor or his outside interests. It's also been in the press Jay has had interest from England, Germany, Greece, and the US. I assuming none of those options beneficial to him in the long run. I suspect Jay will find employment but like every free agent he's not going to jump on any little offer. The Vancouver White Caps, with their move to MLS next season, have reportedly been hot on his trail.
http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/news/_/id/5677211/jay-demerit-hopes-return-us-join-mls-team Heart set on MLS I guess. It would be interesting to see what European clubs made offers though
Vancouver is scheduled to announce the signing of a US World Cup "star" tomorrow morning. Most likely this will be the end of covering DeMerit in this forum.
Be interesting to see if Jay can keep his spot on the USMNT while playing for an expansion MLS team...
Didn't work so well for Califf, but DeMerit is a better player. But I guess it means he would now be available for the January camp and would probably be a good call for the Gold Cup.
Califf lost his spot while he was still in Europe and Demerit would have too. Goodson was already on his heels and was moving up to a better club. With Gonzalez and Ream behind him, Demerit wasn't going to last very long no matter what. Nothing about the 2009 Seattle Sounders seemed like your average expansion team. Not much about the 2010 Philadelphia Union seemed like your average expansion team. The 2011 Vancouver Whitecaps and Portland Timbers won't be your average expansion team. As a matter of fact, the nature of expansion franchises in MLS has changed over time and is a lot different than expansion teams in other sports because of the wide range of ways to sign soccer players.
Its official. Other European clubs were interested in his services, but the Whitecaps prevailed after extensive negotiations. “There's something inspiring about trying to do something new . . . I feel like I'm in the right place now,” DeMerit said.
Obviously we don't have relegation so in essence it wouldn't be much different that playing for a relegation zoned club and numerous Nats have continued to get callups in those situations.
Is it me or does Jay look really strange not wearing the bright yellow, red, and black kits of Watford? I've become so used to that. Nonetheless, I think this is a huge signing for Vancouver. The backline should always be a high priority when building a team and Jay will instantly provide the coverage, leadership, and experience. It wouldn't surprise me to see him captain their side.