Fifty regular season goals. One in the 2011 postseason. The first in Union history; the first in Talen Energy Stadium back when it was PPL Park. The first hat trick.
Sebastien Le Toux scored one goal in just under 1500 minutes with Seattle Sounders in 2009, so there were real questions about his ability to reproduce his sparkling USL form at the Major League Soccer level. Le Toux, remember, was a former USL MVP and the first player Seattle signed when they joined MLS in 2009. But after one season, the Sounders were not sold on Le Toux’s top flight finishing and they left him unprotected.
The Frenchman turned out to be one of the top five expansion draft selections in history.
He notched five braces, and nobody in Union history has more multi-goal games. His six goals from outside of the box is also a club record, as is his 45 from inside.
Le Toux scored many types of goals, but he almost always used his feet: Of the Ring of Honor inductee’s 51 MLS goals only one came from his head.
Le Toux may not have been an aerial threat, but he used his head to find space and break away from defenders. Both Alejandro Moreno and Vincent Nogueira found the Frenchman at full sprint down the far channel, a run that shows incredible trust in a teammate.
On Saturday, when Sebastien Le Toux stands on the Talen Energy Stadium pitch to receive the honor he so richly deserves, it will be one of the few times he has been stationary on a soccer pitch. Take the time to admire a player that used industry and self-belief to score again and again during his Union career. He wanted to score for the Union, and he rarely stopped.
