Metro Connection: Buddle joins MLS 100 Club

Last week, Edson Buddle became the eighth player in MLS history to score 100 regular season goals. And he became the fourth such player to have had a brief dalliance with this club on his way to the milestone.

Jaime Moreno (133 career regular season MLS goals) snapped a seven-year stretch in DC by moving over to the Metrostars in 2003. And he was back in DC to start another seven-year spell in 2004. He scored two MLS goals for Metro while he was here.

Ante Razov (114 career regular season MLS goals) spent some time with the Metrostars in 2005, scored six MLS goals, and moved on to Chivas USA where he scored quite a few more.

Dwayne De Rosario (103 career regular season MLS goals) never really got going for RBNY in the fraction of 2011 he was afforded, but he scored two goals before heading off to DC to put in one of the most furious half-season performances the league has ever seen (he was the league MVP and Golden Boot winner that year). Still, at least the team got Dax McCarty in exchange.

Now Buddle, who managed to score six goals for this club in 28 league appearances during the 2006 campaign (an emotional season, even by this team's standards), has joined the 100 club.

His singular accomplishment, perhaps, in the context of this club's history was to take the field as a late-game substitute for LA Galaxy in the 2012 MLS Cup final, thereby proving that Bruce Arena and Buddle could combine to win something significant.

Just not for RBNY. If only...

Buddle's greatest contribution to the team was almost certainly his hat-trick against Real Salt Lake. Beyond that, he was just one of a great many players who have been better off at clubs other than this.

Well done, Edson. See you next season,