In Rory Molleda’s four years working for D.C. United, the league had changed in many ways. Most fans measure this growth in the quality of play they see on the field. But Molleda, United’s player care manager, took in other data points. The apartments he helped find for incoming players, for instance, might have been getting a little nicer. Nothing, however, prepared him for the assignment that landed in June of last year: house-hunting with Wayne Rooney.



“I’ve always taken players to see apartments when they get here,” he says. “Most of these guys make a little more money than me, but the apartments aren’t too crazy, so I’ll be like, ‘This is a nice apartment. I could live here one day.’”



But Rooney wasn’t looking for an apartment.



“The houses that Wayne and I were seeing were like four-, five-, six-million-dollar houses,” says Molleda. “It was funny. I sort of...