There are always those players that haunt an opposing team. The best example from my own football fan history is the wonderfully named Jan Vennegor of Hesselink, who used to play for Celtic in the SPL. My first love in club football, long before I came to Portland and found the Timbers, was and remains Inverness Caley Thistle, a small Scottish club. Celtic is a much bigger team than Caley, and had plenty of weapons that could hurt us, but it always seemed to be Vennegor who scored on us at the most painful times, letting us get close before he rolled us over for another heartbreaking last-minute loss.
For the Timbers, undoubtedly the most troublesome opposing player of the 2011 season was Dwayne De Rosario. He was trouble for plenty of other teams too, racking up a league-leading 16 goals (tied with Chris Wondolowski) and a 4th-highest 12 assists. But he was particularly special against the Timbers, if only because he hurt us wearing three different teams’ jerseys in the same season.
When he first saw DeRo, he was in the red of Toronto FC, where he’d been since 2009. It was our second-ever MLS match, only a week after the 3-1 beating we took in our debut match in Colorado. We knew De Rosario was the man to watch, so we marked him closely, keeping him to only two shots, neither on target. But our attention on him let his teammate Javier Martina free, and he punished us for it with the only two goals of the game. The first goal, inside the opening fifteen minutes, was an assist from none other than DDR.
The next time we saw him was back home in Portland, after his move to Red Bull New York. There were some pretty insane games in our freshman MLS season, but maybe none as strange or disappointing as that one. After giving up an early goal to New York’s Austin Da Luz, assisted by De Rosario, we fought back for three goals in the second half. The last was an extremely satisfying own goal from former Timber Stephen Keel, he of the giant blonde perm. We were up 3-1 by the 70th minute, and looked on our way to another home win. Thierry Henry got one back, but was also sent off, so as regular time ended, we were still up a goal and a man. Without warning, in the 95th minute (and there’s a good argument to be made that the game should have ended in the 93rd), De Rosario fired a shot into the box and off of Rodney Wallace’s outstretched arm, winning a penalty. He took it himself, and drew the match right at its death. Afterward, even Thierry Henry said he thought we deserved more than a draw.
There’s a certain symmetry to this sport. On our second to last match, away at D.C. United, we met the same man who had first drawn blood on us in the second match of the season. D.C. was his third team in the year, and since his move, he was on a tear, almost singlehandedly bringing United back into the playoff race. When we went up 1-0 on what would end up as Kenny Cooper’s last goal as a Timbers forward, we held out hope for a miracle trip to the playoffs. But who would appear – Dwayne De Rosario, in the 73rd minute, with an equalizer, and it ended 1-1, with two vital points left on the table.
All told, in three meetings with De Rosario, he put up two goals and two assists on the Timbers. Both of his goals were game-tying, meaning that he is responsible for 4 points dropped from our season total himself. Our margin behind the Red Bulls for the final playoff spot? 4 points.
We host D.C. United at Jeld-Wen Field on September 29th, our fourth-to-last match of the 2012 season. Assuming DeRo doesn’t change teams again, that will be the only time we see him. I for one wouldn’t mind if he picked up a cold on that long flight, especially in the run up to what we’re all hoping is our first MLS playoff appearance.
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