Rooney charged toward midfield and, when Johnson got to the ball first, upended him with a game-saving tackle. But he wasn’t done. Rooney then popped back up and, after settling himself with three quick touches, delivered a cross-field pass that Luciano Acosta headed in at the back post for a 3-2 victory.

“It was,” D.C. United defender Steve Birnbaum said, “just an unbelievable play.”

For D.C. United this season, there is life before Rooney and life since he arrived. Before Rooney, the club was floundering on the road as it awaited the completion of Audi Field, which opened on July 9. Frustration mounted along with the losses. But since D.C. United signed Rooney to a multiyear, multimillion-dollar deal after several weeks of rumors, the team has gone 5-2-1, rising out of last place and directly into the playoff conversation heading into a match against the Red Bulls on Sunday.

“Obviously,” Rooney said, “the confidence is high right now.”

In the process, he has lifted the burden on fellow playmakers like Acosta, a 24-year-old midfielder from Argentina who has thrived in their new partnership and who affectionately referred to Rooney as Señor Wayne. But he has also silenced critics who questioned whether his signing was little more than a publicity stunt for a listless club in need of a boldface name to sell tickets to its new stadium. For the moment, everyone seems to be cheering the deal.

Before Sunday’s 2-0 victory over the New England Revolution, Brian Portillo, 30, and his girlfriend, Wendy Miguel, 28, were among those who had swarmed the club’s merchandise store, newly flush with Rooney gear. Portillo and Miguel had come in search of matching jerseys featuring Rooney’s name and number; Portillo said that they had tried to order them online a week earlier only to find they were sold out.

“I think he’s energized the city,” said Portillo, who recalled hearing from friends who were skeptical of the signing. “They were like, ‘He’s just here for the paycheck.’ I don’t think so.”

Rooney, who signed for three and a half years on a deal approaching $15 million, according to two people familiar with the negotiations, may be far removed from the grandeur of the Premier League, where he spent 16 years with Everton and Manchester United and then Everton again, but he still has reach. The clip of his late-game heroics against Orlando City eventually made its way onto his Instagram feed, where it was viewed more than 2.5 million times in the week after it went up.