Six years ago, Dwayne De Rosario capped his first season in Major League Soccer with a sensational MVP performance in the MLS Cup Final at Columbus Crew Stadium, coming off the bench to score the Golden Goal that won the league title for the San Jose Earthquakes.
Since then, one individual accolade after another has piled up for the Canadian international: two second-place finishes in the league Most Valuable Player race, two nominations to the MLS Best XI, two awards for MLS Goal of the Year.
Now De Rosario's gritty performance on a sunny fall afternoon in Washington, D.C. has further padded that tremendous resume, earning him the 2007 MLS Cup MVP award. After setting up Joseph Ngwenya to draw the Orange level with the New England Revolution, "DeRo" headed home a Brad Davis cross for the game-winner at RFK Stadium to bring home a second consecutive MLS Cup championship for Houston Dynamo.
"He has a flair for the dramatic," said Houston coach Dominic Kinnear. "He is a scorer of great goals, as we've seen year after year. His play is, you could say it's not risky but a little bit cavalier, where he tries to do things that maybe other people don't try to do -- and a lot of times it comes off. Today was maybe not an exciting goal, but it was an important goal."
Dynamo's come-from-behind triumph also adds to De Rosario's most important statistic of all: four career championships, just one behind the all-time league record held by his former teammate Jeff Agoos.
"It speaks for itself: four championships," said teammate Richard Mulrooney, who watched De Rosario blossom during their time together in San Jose. "I think at the end of all of our careers, it will be looked at -- how many championships you won. He's got four. He's got MVPs of All-Star Games, of MLS Cup. And most importantly, he's a good person. He works hard, he's a family man and I'm just happy he's on our team."
Fittingly, De Rosario brought his 10-year-old daughter Asha and six-year-old son Osaze -- who needed both hands to clutch his father's MVP trophy -- up to the podium to sit with him for a post-game press conference deep in the bowels of RFK, where he then proceeded to deflect praise onto those around him.
"We never give up. I can't speak any more highly of our teammates -- just the dedication, determination and just the will to never give up is just unbelievable," he said. "I feel very blessed to be with a great group of guys, a great coaching staff that instills that attitude in us every day in training and every time we step on the field. And it shows. Joseph scoring that goal ... and then Brad played a perfect ball to my head and I just had the easy job of putting it in. The rest is history."
His coach contended that the game-winning goal was somewhat out of character, given his tendency to notch highlight-reel finishes.
"I can say, laughingly, that I can't believe he scored with his head this year, because if you see him in practice he never does," said a grinning Kinnear. "But he picked a great time -- I'm surprised he didn't take a step back and try to sidewinder it. But I think if you look at it, Dwayne's being a bit humble when he's saying that all I had to do was finish it. Because it was a good ball from Brad but it was an excellent header."
De Rosario himself was all smiles as he willingly conceded the point.
"As Dom says, I don't score with my head," he said. "I guess in these game situations it's more instinct than it is anything else. The ball was played and like Dom said, usually I bicycle or try to volley it -- actually that's the first thought that came to my head. But I thought my head was the best option, and thankfully I did it, and it went in the net."
De Rosario's influential plays wiped away more than 45 minutes of frustration and disjointed play from the Orange, who overcame a slow start to become just the second team in MLS history to successfully defend their crown.
"I think 2001 was special and I think this one was even more special, because of just the fact that we're the second team now to go back-to-back," he said. "Just to make history in the league again, to be the second team to go back-to-back, is a special moment and I think this moment will live in our hearts forever."
Charles Boehm is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
