From the outset of his achingly long contract dispute, Dwayne De Rosario was clear about two things.

First, that he needed more money to play the game of soccer. And second, that he wanted to earn it playing in Toronto.

He’s gone now. And, as it turns out, neither of those things mattered as much as getting back at his hometown club.

On a Tuesday conference call from his new home in New York, De Rosario conceded that, yes, he was determined to get out of Toronto when the club would not give him a raise. More surprisingly, he was so determined that he switched allegiances without benefit of a raise.

“Yeah, I’m still under the same contract as when I left (Toronto FC),” De Rosario said.

Um. So explain to us again why you had to leave?

“I couldn’t play unhappy,” De Rosario said. “You would expect them to keep their hometown boy as comfortable as possible. I didn’t sense that.”

After banging a drum for weeks about securing his financial future with an extended contract, it now turns out that De Rosario has decamped Canada for what amounts to a year-long trial with the New York Red Bulls. His goal — a designated-player spot and a seven-figure salary next year. If he plays poorly, he’s out of luck. If he blows out a knee, he’ll be left without a contract or a future in the game.

These are precisely the same challenges he faced here.

Finally, this picture is beginning to get a little clearer. This wasn’t about what’s right. It was at least partly about revenge.

He got it. The club is significantly lessened without him — in both the short and medium terms.

However, in leaving under these circumstances, he’s also given Toronto FC something they badly needed — a hate object.

Now De Rosario was never a hateful person. Obfuscatory, sure. But he was always generous with his time and appreciative of the fans. He has (sort of) resisted the urge to lob bombs indiscriminately once out of town.

But it’s growing daily clearer that De Rosario’s version of events has always been skewed in favour of De Rosario. He has a bad case of the professional athlete’s most recurrent narrative impediment — torque-itis of the story-ismus.

MLS soccer in Toronto has always been about Toronto. The team exists in a vacuum. Every other weekend, an interchangeable group of anonymous players from another city visit to play here.

If even the most ardent fans are a little fuzzy about the personnel on other clubs, they’re even more mystified as to why they should care about them, other than a win versus a loss. The league’s milquetoast, let’s-all-be-friends marketing strategy doesn’t help.

But fans in this city (and every other) want a fight. They tried to pick one with Landon Donovan of the L.A. Galaxy — based almost entirely on Donovan’s perfectly reasonable contention that he didn’t like playing on FieldTurf. It turns out, they agreed with him. Now BMO Field’s got grass, and no one can remember why they hated Donovan in the first place, other than that he’s good.

After a few years, supporters have begun to discover that it’s hard to love if you’ve got no one to hate.

Now they have their man — Dwayne De Rosario, the former hero who turned his back on his hometown club for spite. Prepare your bile for Oct. 1, when Toronto will be well out of a playoff spot but ready to “welcome” De Rosario and New York to town.

Yes, Toronto FC would have been far better with De Rosario. But he deserves some consideration for providing the club with the parting gift of ill-will and a reason to care other than points on the standings table.