De Rosario named MLS MVP, setting stage for contract extension talks

“For me, this is the most meaningful individual honor of my career,” De Rosario said in a written statement. “I couldn’t have achieved this without my teammates, and I’m grateful to the players, coaches, fans, media and people at MLS for recognizing me. That said, I’m disappointed not to be playing in the MLS Cup Playoffs right now, and my goal is to get D.C. United back to where it belongs in 2012.”

De Rosario finished with a career-high 16 goals, the most in MLS, and 12 assists – 13 goals and eight assists came in 18 games with D.C. United after he was acquired from New York in June. Starting the season in Toronto, by the end of the summer, De Rosario had scored on both of his most previous clubs.

De Rosario was also named to the MLS Best XI for the sixth time his career and earlier this week he picked up his 19^th international goal for Canada, tying Dale Mitchell as his national team’s all-time leading scorer.

The voting breakdown shows it wasn’t close, especially among De Rosario’s peers on the field and the club front offices and officials who watched him beat up on their teams.

The league MVP award is the fourth for D.C. United, which has seen Marco Etcheverry (1998), Christian Gomez (2006) and Luciano Emilio (2007) all lay claim to the honor.

Speaking of Emilio, this is where things get interesting for De Rosario, who has one more year on his contract, and there is equal intent on his part as well as D.C. United’s to pen a contract extension as soon as possible.

In 2007, after Emilio, with a league-best 20 goals and one assist, in pretty controversial fashion took the MVP over New York’s Juan Pablo Angel, who had 19 goals and five assists for a far worse New York team, he was rewarded with a bonus and later a new contract that more than doubled his 2007 non-designated player salary of $293,123 to $758,857, according to MLS Players Union salary figures. Of course, D.C. United also decided that offseason to part ways with Gomez, who had arguably been more important to the club than Emilio, and replace him with expensive, injured and underproductive Marcelo Gallardo. Those related decisions heralded the team’s backslide in recent seasons and bottoming out in 2010.

De Rosario was paid just shy of $500,000 this season, with a raise next year that would move him just barely into designated player territory, a place he’s never been and which was the source of his falling out with Toronto at the beginning of the year and played a role in New York’s decision to part with him, too. Did either club make the right decision?

Although De Rosario is 33 years old, it stands to reason that Emilio’s jump in salary would serve as a frame of reference for negotiations. D.C. United, with its cash-losing situation at RFK Stadium and pursuit of additional investors, isn’t exactly awash in funds.

The team also has a designated player on the roster, Branko Boskovic, and according to a source with knowledge of his contract, the team could propose that the amount Boskovic is owed over the next and final six months of his contract could be spread out of the full season, which could help free some money to pay De Rosario and make him the team’s lone designated player. With the Montenegro national team eliminated from the Euro 2012 playoffs this week, Boskovic now has no obligations over the summer and can focus solely on D.C., where he is happy, both with the team and his family situation, having his family here and his son enrolled in school.