First steps on Canadian soil, What a welcome @impactmontreal 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/L2B2Lpzf5g

— Didier Drogba (@didierdrogba) July 29, 2015

Didier Drogba arrived in Montreal to begin work with the Impact and good lord are the locals excited to have him. Though Drogba is no stranger to massive airport welcome parties, he was still impressed with the one he received in Montreal — so much so that he even recorded it himself.

As one Impact fan explains in the clip below, fueling the excitement is the sense that Drogba had options, even within MLS as Chicago wanted him too, but chose their city. Also that he’s a person who so many different fans can identify with and get behind. The French speakers, English speakers, Africans, Chelsea fans, and anyone who is a fan of people who build hospitals and single handedly end wars. Drogba is a player who represents many different things to many different people and that’s how you get a joyous reception like this.

For the sake of comparison, Steven Gerrard’s arrival in Los Angeles last month was much more intimate and subdued…