Real Salt Lake's Joy leaving team to be with daughter

SANDY — It's been over a year since Ian Joy has been with his 3½-year-old daughter, Madison, who's in Germany. And as the bad luck has piled up for the Real Salt Lake fullback this season, he's thought more and more about trying to get back to her.

Joy requested to part ways with Real Salt Lake last week so he could return to his daughter in Europe and have a fresh start professionally, and the club obliged. The 28-year-old defender will leave for Germany on Monday, and his $126,000 contract won't count against RSL's salary cap at that point, meaning the club will have even more money with which to use on new signings.

"First and foremost, it was a family decision," said Joy. "I've been away from my daughter now for over a year. At Christmas time, I tried to get back. I had a couple of offers (last offseason), but it just wasn't meant to be. I decided to come back because I wanted to prove a point. This year, it's been unfortunately a lot of bad luck."

Joy finishes with 20 appearances in his year and a half with the club. After struggling to settle at the beginning of last year, Joy became a very serviceable fullback by the end of RSL's 2008 playoff run.

He was expected to be an important contributor for Real Salt Lake this season, but a hamstring injury that he sustained in RSL's final preseason game kept him out for an extended period. While he was on the sideline, second-year defender Tony Beltran came into his own to nail down a starting spot at left back, with standout Chris Wingert starting on the other side. Also, Robbie Russell had established himself as the backup to both players, making it very hard for Joy to get into the side.

Joy says he'll return to Germany to see his daughter and then he'll assess where he wants to play next.

"I'm looking at many, many clubs," he said.

Meanwhile, RSL general manager Garth Lagerwey confirmed Saturday evening that Salt Lake is still hoping to acquire one — and probably two — attacking players.

That's what Lagerwey told reporters the club was planning to do on Friday — albeit, reporters at the time didn't know that Joy was leaving.

Lagerwey said RSL probably won't be signing a defender to replace Joy.

"When I talked to you guys, I knew that Ian was gone, so it's still the same message," said Lagerwey. "It'll be one or two guys. The update I have is that we've made an offer, and we've made progress on that player. I'm optimistic that we're gonna have an announcement when the (transfer) window opens" on Wednesday.

Lagerwey said that RSL hasn't yet made an offer on a second player — something that could happen soon.

"We're still kicking around a number of possibilities, and it's basically just a situation of deciding which way we want to go," he said.