Jay DeMerit, right, celebrates Watford's equaliser at Bristol City last Monday with his team-mate John Eustace. The American has become a key player for both club and country.

Watford's captain sees the trip to Stamford Bridge as a stepping stone to facing England in the World Cup for the USA is a footballing life less ordinary. Bartender, bouncer, painter and decorator, sculptor, product design graduate, successful IT businessman and non-League central defender until the age of 24, the boy from Green Bay mastered Fernando Torres in last summer's Confederations Cup semi-final and will hope for a repeat this afternoon against Nicolas Anelka, Frank Lampard and company when he leads out Watford at Stamford Bridge.

DeMerit's stellar performance against Spain in Fifa's second-tier competition helped the United States to a 2-0 win over the European champions. On 12 June, a year on from that famous victory in Bloemfontein, DeMerit hopes to line up in Rustenburg against England in the opening game of Group C in the World Cup.

If DeMerit, now 30, is on the field, it will be yet another signal achievement on an impressive CV, following the serious injury that nearly ended his career. "I couldn't even see out of one eye for about a month," he says of a problem caused by a piece of grit that scratched his right cornea in September.

"I was basically blind. But it's absolutely amazing what they can do with eyes now. To stitch my eye by hand, and do the rest by laser, was just mind-blowing. Normally it takes three to four months. But this cut recovery time in half because it used atomic energy and because the cut's so clean there's not as much scarring."

After graduating from the University of Illinois at Chicago, DeMerit joined Chicago Fire Premier, in the amateur USL Development League, but failed to get a move to the professional Major League Soccer. "The team I was playing on was just a bunch of college kids but it prepared me to keep trying to go up levels. From there I had a choice: come to England or stay in America."

England won. He felt he would benefit from the life experience "and that, if I was going to make it, I might as well start at the top. I don't think anyone from America has ever done that before".

What followed was the stuff of cheesy Tinseltown scripts. With a Fire team-mate, Kieron Keane, DeMerit first tried Sparta Rotterdam before the pair drew inspiration from a Queens Park Rangers game during a summer working in England as bartenders and bouncers.

They returned in 2003, lodged with Keane's family and played for Southall, in the London suburbs, in English football's ninth tier. Demerit was paid £40 a week and also turned out for a Sunday league side. Promotion with Southall was followed by a trial for Shrewsbury Town before fortune intervened. Southall had folded but their coach, Del Deanus, went to Northwood Town, who picked DeMerit for a pre-season friendly against Watford. Their manager, Ray Lewington, offered DeMerit a trial, then signed him.

That was 2004. He has since scored the opener in Watford's 3-0 Championship play-off final victory over Leeds United in 2006 and earned an international call-up for the first time in 2007. He also started up Songwhale, a fast-growing digital music company in the US, and became immune to the seasonal financial crisis at Vicarage Road.

Last month the deputy Conservative party chairman, Lord Ashcroft, saved the club from administration by paying £4.9m to the Russo brothers, the former owners who resigned. DeMerit says: "There was a lot of drama made but it's not like we haven't been in them before. I've been here six years and I swear we have them every year."

Against Chelsea he will hope to transmit his attitude around his team. "You can't go into games like this thinking, 'Oh I'm playing against John Terry here.' When you do that you're giving him an advantage and I think he already has enough advantages just being him."

Facing Terry, Lampard and Joe Cole today will be an experience DeMerit plans to draw on in the summer, provided he is on that plane for South Africa. England v USA, he says, is a 50-50 contest.

"When we play England, they have all the plaudits and the tags of world-class player but, if you can challenge a world-class player and put him on the line, you never know. England's going to have all the pressure, for sure."

So, too, Chelsea this afternoon.