Jay DeMerit

Early career

DeMerit was a three-sport high school athlete in Wisconsin, where he participated in basketball and track in addition to soccer. He attended Bay Port High School and graduated in 1998. DeMerit played college soccer at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he moved from playing forward to defender. While in college, DeMerit formed part of a defensive backline that helped lead the team into the NCAA playoffs in 2000. Although he played with Chicago Fire Premier, the development team of the Chicago Fire in the USL Premier Development League, he was not drafted or signed by any Major League Soccer clubs following graduation from college. After spending some time working as a bartender, DeMerit took the advice of a former European teammate and decided to take advantage of his European Union work status (due to his Danish grandfather) by moving to England in 2003 with $1,800, in an attempt to find a club to play for. He started off playing in the ninth tier of English football for Southall, earning only £40 a week. In July 2004, DeMerit joined Northwood, a seventh-tier side, to play in some of their pre-season matches. Northwood played Watford, then a Football League Championship team, in their second pre-season match. During the course of the match, DeMerit impressed then Watford manager Ray Lewington enough to earn a two-week trial. Following the trial, DeMerit signed a one-year contract with Watford to play in their 2004–05 season.

Watford…

DeMerit earned his first cap for the United States national team on March 28, 2007, starting in a friendly against Guatemala. He was a member of the U.S. Men's National Team that won the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup, thus qualifying for the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup. In the 2009 Confederations Cup, DeMerit started at center back due to Carlos Bocanegra's hamstring injury. He played the entire game when the U.S. Men's National Team defeated Spain in the semi-final 2–0 on June 24, 2009. The Barcelona sports daily El Mundo Deportivo called DeMerit's play "superb". DeMerit also played the entire match when the USMNT lost 3–2 to Brazil in the Cup final on June 28, 2009. For the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, he made Bob Bradley's 23-man squad, and started all four of the United States matches – the three first-round games, against England, Slovenia, and Algeria, and the second round match against Ghana, in which the U.S. Men's National Team were eliminated. During the Algeria match he played most of the game with a split tongue that required five stitches after the game. Despite his success in the World Cup squad and with Vancouver, he was not recalled to the national team under Bradley's successor Jürgen Klinsmann.

Club

As of match played 24 July 2014

International

His career is the subject of the 2011 independent film, Rise and Shine: The Jay DeMerit Story, based on his rise from the ninth tier of soccer in England to the Premier League and FIFA World Cup. In 2013, he married Canadian freestyle skier and Olympic gold medalist, Ashleigh McIvor. The couple would have a son together, Oakes, and would later separate but continued to co-parent their child.