Diop was let loose and Mike Kuhn visibly tensed. Diop raced into the box and shot high and left and Mike released the pent up potential energy and exploded a full five inches into the air gesticulating like a lunatic and then shouted indiscriminately like a man talking to a phantom in the midst of some drunken delusion …. “AND THAT IS WHY DIOP …. SHOULD …. NOT … BE PLAYING FORWARD”.

He was a mad garbage chewing dog.

I single Mike out, he just happened to be the person I happened to clap eyes on, but all around me people looked knowingly at each other.  It was going to be one of those days when the wheels just come off.  The realization that the Wizards were screwed happened much earlier in the week when Teal Bunbury finally received the suspension he had coming for his role in the off the ball shenanigans in San Jose however with Smith nursing injuries and Wolff laid up, Chhetri in India, Zoltan still recovering from a torn ACL we had no options.

The logical choice was to put Arnaud up front, plop Zusi into midfield and just try and score a goal or hold on for  a draw but the release of the starting line up triggered a cacophony of ‘What?’ around the tailgate prior to the game as the news was relayed around the parking lot.  Diop was starting.  The Diop that has not started a game in MLS for 8 years?  The Diop that has never scored an MLS goal before?  That Diop … and he is playing up front?  What?  Diop?  Like frog song in mating season.  Diop?  Up Top?  What?

This was not good news, and with only a fools hope of making the playoffs the Wizards needed wins,  not journeyman defensive midfielders playing as strikers in a team that is on pace to be the worst offensive team in the history of MLS if not for DC United suffering from an identical inability to score.

Up Top?  Diop?

I grabbed my iPhone …. just ranting at the tailgate wasn’t enough, I needed to Tweet.   “Diop starting up top? Ouchie. Petty off the ball horse shit that leads to suspensions costs us fans with this weak squad.”.  I wasn’t alone.  Charles Gooch from the Kansas City Star “Diop up top? 2nd worst scoring team in mls starting a dm at fwd. ouch. Wolff not in the 18.”.  Mad Dog Mike : “Diop? Seriously?”.

This sounds bad, but we had seen Diop in many a hopeless situations this season.  He is a tall, somewhat gangling African that is often introduced while the opposition’s fat lady is coming on for an encore.  We pump hopeless/hopeful long balls towards him and he tries to get a head on them.  It hasn’t worked once and it is our desperation move.

Desperate for goals, desperate for points.  Diop?  Up Top? Noooooo.

2o minutes later Mike was laughing heartily, our boy from Senegal had just scored his second goal.  Wizards don’t score two in one game in 2010.  Two for Diop?  And the jubilation that swept Community America Ballpark was only matched by the confusion that came with it.  “What the hell is going on?” was a common sentiment.

Not long into the second half Diop managed to keep a ball in play by the finest of margins, and showed nimble feet in doing so.  He fed a curling inch perfect pass along the ground to Kamara to score a goal that was put on a plate for him. It was perfect play.

2 goals and an assist from a written off player has kept our tenuous foolish dreams of playoff football alive.  It is a funny old game, and after thirty some years watching I love that I can still be wrong, still be surprised and I am happy that for once, it is not Kei Kamara, Jimmy Nielsen or Ryan Smith making the headlines but Birahim Diop.

He scored two and made one.  Up Top Diop!

So last night shall forevermore be known as “The Diop Game”, one of my favorite nights as an MLS and Wizards fan.All I want to do now is shake his hand.  Well played Birahim Diop, well played.

The question is what happens now?  He looked good out there … and he has now scored as many goals as Teal Bunbury.  He also worked better with Kamara than anybody else has this season.

Side Note:  In 1991 there was a similar story when Paul Warhurst a defender was put in as a forward for Sheffield Wednesday when they had injuries to David Hirst and Mark Bright.  Amazingly 12 games later Paul Warhurst had twelve goals and was called into the England squad, not as a defender but a forward.  It has all happened before, but its special regardless.