How Wayne Rooney Won Over His Doubters in 20 Seconds

WASHINGTON — When Wayne Rooney started his sprint, Milton Ventura was thinking exactly what everyone else was thinking.

“I was like, I don’t know man,” Ventura said. “He’s a little old.”

What happened in the next 20 seconds, though, was soccer magic from Rooney, D.C. United’s big summer signing: a desperate bit of backtracking, a rugged one-on-one tackle, a quick survey of the options and then a pinpoint assist from a distant ZIP code.

By the time the ball had settled into Orlando City’s net, those 20 seconds had altered quite a few things, including, but not limited to: perceptions about the state of Rooney’s skills at age 32; skepticism about Major League Soccer’s continuing addiction to…