When Wayne Rooney moved from Everton to D.C. United this summer after plenty of speculation, many were skeptical of how well that would work. With Rooney being 32, out of favor at Everton (where he hadn’t scored since December), and with 610 career matches for Everton, Manchester United and the English national team, there were arguments that he wouldn’t bring much to DC United on the field. Well, he definitely did that with one amazing highlight at the end of Sunday’s match:
ARE YOU KIDDING US, @WayneRooney????? AMAZING!!!!! #DCvORL https://t.co/Iys5sJBDOs
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) August 13, 2018
Yes, that’s Rooney tracking back hard to make a goal-saving tackle with the score tied 2-2, as D.C. United’s keeper had gone forward to press for a winner off a corner and was caught up the pitch. And Rooney then does brilliantly to quickly turn this into an attack, dribbling forward and sending an incredible long-range ball into the Orlando box, where Luciano Acosta heads it home for the winner, his third goal of the match. The peals of laughter from the color commentator there are great, too; what do you even say about that? This is as close as soccer’s going to come to an insane long-range buzzer-beater. Here’s another look at that finish from Noah Frank of DC radio station WTOP, who was behind the Orlando net:
My. Goodness. What a hustle play by Rooney. Keeper was up for the corner, he chased down a loose attacker, made an incredible tackle, started the attack the other way that led to the likely game-winner off this header pic.twitter.com/dbijIdJU2Z
— Noah Frank (@NoahAFrank) August 13, 2018
This was one of Rooney’s two assists on the night, and it was spectacular. So far, he’s played in six MLS matches overall, scoring one goal, adding three assists, and making some impressive midfield contributions. The long-term verdict on this signing won’t be known for a while, but boy, did it look good Sunday.
[MLS on Twitter]
