Ben Olsen opened his press conference tonight by telling the media that the referee wasn't the story tonight, and I'd do anything Olsen says.
The story was Dwayne De Rosario giving an elite performance that will probably have him named MLS Player Of The Week for the second consecutive week. It was the most dominating performance from a single player in recent United memory. It was like a basketball team who gives the ball to their best player on every possession - the team sent the ball in De Rosario's direction as often as possible, and Toronto FC just had no answer. De Rosario scored a hat trick and is single-handedly carrying this team at the moment. There are of course downsides to that, but he's scored United's last six goals, and he's only been wearing black-and-red for six games.
Olsen said "Dwayne's unbelievable. He's an absolute stud. He's a winner and we're very very happy he's here."
The story was also the way the team fought for all 98 minutes. They were "screwed every which way tonight" according to Olsen, but they managed three goals anyway, and could have won if not for a few too many mistakes, particularly from our goalkeeping. Bill Hamid was sent off in just the seventh minute of the game, and its hard to imagine this team not collecting all three points if Hamid was able to stay on the field. Steve Cronin could have done better on two of Toronto's three goals.
But it was really an incredible and inspiring performance from United. In his first match in two months, Santino Quaranta played the entire match and specifically mentioned in the locker room that he'd do anything for Olsen. He fought for him. The whole team did. Maybe it was because he'd been away from the field for so long, but Quaranta seemed absolutely optimistic about the team, and was especially pleased to be playing alongside De Rosario for the first time. Quaranta said that De Rosario "knows what he has to do to get me an assist."
But perhaps Chris Pontius summed things up best. He said "A lot of players gutted it out and showed a lot of character. Imagine what we would have done if it was 11 v 11 tonight."