Good piece of business for both Joy and Portland. Portland have a MLS quality defender in their move to MLS next season and in return, if Joy plays well, there's little doubt he'll be a MLSer again.
Appears that he is on trial at Fortuna Düsseldorf. There is a picture of him trying to kick some player's head off in a friendly against Tom Tomsk which I can't seem to copy here. It is picture 9 on this page. Not sure if Starikov played in the match. Edit: The page containing the photos is dated today; however, it might be old footage as the only mention of a friendly between these two clubs is from 2009 and had the same 2-0 result.
You were correct in your first assessment - the photos are from Jan 2009, which you can see from the following article, last updated 15.01.2009, and photo gallery, which has the photos you posted. http://www.rp-online.de/duesseldorf...-fetzte-bei-Ian-Joys-Premiere_aid_661259.html And it sounds like he is in the US according to his twitter feed. http://twitter.com/JOYPAULIAN
I was a bit concerned this might be the case. However, he recently tweeted about interested parties in Germany, Google claims those pics were posted within 7 days, the date at the top of the pages I got the photos from said last week. Apparently I put 2 and 2 together and came up with 5. Sorry folks.
Not a big deal - he is looking for a club and Germany's 2. Bundesliga would be a logical destination. It will become clearer in the coming weeks hopefully.
Ian is back in Scotland, and will be a live guest on mao's Football show (a Portland Timbers-related show) on January 4th. One of the topics mentioned is his plans for the future so maybe we will get some info on where he might be headed. There is also a link to send questions for the interview if anyone is interested.
From the "where are they now file" Ian has been hired to do color commentary for the new BeIN Sports. Interview by Seltzer here