|
|
RedNation Online recently had the opportunity to speak with Jason de Vos, a former defender with the Canadian Men's National Team. De Vos was capped 49 times by Canada and was the team captain of the Canadian team that won the 2000 CONCACAF Gold Cup.
Audio Interview:
De Vos began his professional career in 1990 as a 15 year-old high schooler with his hometown club the London Lasers of the former Canadian Soccer League (CSL). When the club folded he joined the Kitchener Kickers, also of the CSL. When the latter club also folded he rejoined the re-established Lasers in 1992, during the last year of operations for the CSL. De Vos spent the next five seasons with the Montreal Impact oroganization of the then American Professional Soccer League, the last two on loan to English Third Division club Darlington. In 1998 De Vos signed a contract with the Darlington before moving to Dundee United of the Scottish Premier League on a £400,000 transfer. He spent three seasons with The Terrors, captaining the side in 2000-01. He was then signed by Wigan Athletic of the then English Second Division for £500,000 in 2001. De Vos captained the side to its promotion to the First Division in 2002-03 and was named in that season's Professional Footballers’ Association Division Two Team of the Year. Following an injury-plagued 2003-2004 campaign, which saw Wigan just miss out on an FA Premier League FA playoff place, De Vos left on a Bosman transfer and joined Ipswich Town FC, where he was a key member of the club until his retirement at the end of the 2007-08 season.
At the international level, De Vos appeared for Canada in 49 full internationals, scoring 4 goals. He debuted on August 19th, 1997 in a 1–0 home loss friendly to Iran and has represented Canada in 11 FIFA World Cup qualification matches. De Vos also played at the 2001 Confederations Cup. He captained the Canadian team from 1999 until his retirement from international football in 2004. De Vos was named a tournament all-star for both the 2000 and 2002 CONCACAF Gold Cup tournaments, in which Canada placed first and third respectively. He scored the winning goal in the final of the 2000 Gold Cup, a match Canada won 2–0 over Colombia.
De Vos currently brings more than 18 years of experience on the pitch to his current analyst role on CBC's Major League Soccer and FIFA telecasts and writes regularly about Canadian and International soccer through his blog at http://www.cbc.ca/sports/blogs/_soccer/jason_de_vos/.
RedNation Online and Jason discuss his thoughts on the 2000 CONCACAF Gold Cup tournament.
|