BWP, 2014

We just discussed the progression of the all-time scoring record, so let's do the same exercize for a single season. As all Metro goalscoring goes, it starts with Giovanni Savarese. On September 21, 1996, Gio scored a penalty kick in an otherwise meaningless (unless your name is former Metro front office staffer Louis Ken-Kwofie) 4:1 loss to Tampa Bay. It was his 13th goal in league play, coming in the last game of the regular season. His next goal will be a tad more memorable: on September 24, in the first playoff game in MLS history, Savarese tied DC after coming on as a sub just a minute earlier. That gave him 14 in all competitions.

A year later, Gio did one better in the league, getting to 14 goals by scoring in, once again meaningless, regular season finale. On September 28, Metro topped the Scum 3:1 at RFK. (We say meaningless, but beating DC is always sweet.) He did not score in the Open Cup, and Metro didn't make the playoffs, so the all competitions record stood pat.

A year later, Gio scored twice on September 6 in a 4:3 loss to Columbus. That matched 14 in league play, but gave him 16 in all competitions, since he scored twice in that year's Open Cup.

A year later, Gio was long gone, because Metro was usually run by idiots. Let's move on.

August 26, 2000 will forever remain in Metro lore: it's the game in which Clint Mathis scored five goals. But it's the last goal in that 6:4 triumph over Dallas that was also the record-breaker: Adolfo Valencia's 15th in league play. On September 5, "El Tren" scored in a 2:1 win over Miami, taking his tally to 16. A week later, in an Open Cup semifinal played on Long Island, Metro played Miami again and lost 3:2. Valencia's late talley made the game close and gave him 17 in all competitions. He would take his total to 21 by scoring four playoff goals, the last two (it should have been three!) in a 3:2 loss to Chicago on October 6.

Valencia's league record stood for seven years, until Juan Pablo Angel arrived in 2007. The Cherubic Assassin scored his 17th from the spot in a 2:2 tie versus Real Salt Lake on September 29. On October 13, he scored twice against Kansas City in a 2:1 win to end with 19. His only non-league goal came on his debut in the Open Cup, so the all competitions record was safe.

This brings us to -- who else! -- Bradley Wright-Phillips. On August 23, 2014, BWP scored twice in a 4:2 win over Montreal. His last was #20. On September 20, he did one better: scoring three in a 4:1 win over Seattle. His first was #22 in all competitions (at that point, all were scored in league play) to pass Valencia. On October 26, Wright-Phillips scored both in a 2:0 win at Kansas City to make it 27, tying the MLS all-time record at the time. In all competitions, he took it to 31 on November 23, in a 2:1 home playoff loss to New England (the non-call on Jermaine Jones scissor tackling Dax McCarty will forever piss us off).

As all Metro goalscoring goes, it starts with Giovanni Savarese and ends with Bradley Wright-Phillips...

League				All Competitions
	Giovanni Savarese	13			Giovanni Savarese	14
⮟				⮟
	Giovanni Savarese	14			Giovanni Savarese	16
⮟				⮟
	Adolfo Valencia	16			Adolfo Valencia	21
⮟				⮟
	Juan Pablo Angel	19			Bradley Wright-Phillips	31
⮟
	Bradley Wright-Phillips	27