Union news:

Looks to be close to the finish line. Nothing official yet.

A brief bit of research shows that this guy is a central midfielder, somewhat of a 6/8 hybrid. Transfermarkt says Metz played three main formations this past season, leaning mostly towards an attacking 4-3-3 but also playing a 4-5-1 and a 4-2-3-1 earlier in the year. He was a more advanced central midfielder in those triangular shapes, not a #10 necessarily, but when Metz played three in the middle it seems like they mostly had him playing forward with another guy, more often than operating as a single-pivot 6. That makes me wonder if the Union see this guy as a box-to-box #8 in their diamond system.

While in France, he played a season in the second division and a season in the first division. 2,300+ minutes in both campaigns.  Metz finished 8-5-21 this past year and had the most losses in the Ligue 1, but they finished with 29 points and were only relegated after losing a two-leg playoff series with St. Etienne. They’re one of those teams that straddles the line between D1 and D2.

Beyond that, I don’t know fuck all about this guy. He’s a Haitian international, and has played in the Gold Cup, and it’s always important for MLS to identify the best players in CONCACAF and bring them in. Knowing what we know about the Union, Danley Jean Jacques will either fail to make the 18 every single game or he’ll become a 3x All Star and another slam dunk moneyball signing. Knowing Ernst Tanner’s hit rate on these types of moves, I might give the Union sporting director my DraftKings casino promo code and have him play it for me.


BTW, Danley Jean Jacques also likes to get stuck in, it would appear:

EDIT – the first version of this story had a photo of the wrong guy… I think. Our photo service labeled him as DJJ, but the number he was wearing in the photo doesn’t match his Haiti number, so I just swapped it out