Similar shot, very different circumstances.
Tag: Didier Drogba
The many dilemmas that face Didier Drogba as player-owner of Phoenix Rising
Drogba is taking up an unusual combination of roles with a club hoping to join MLS
On Wednesday it was announced that Didier Drogba will join three-year-old USL club Phoenix Rising as both a player and a part-owner. On the pitch, Drogba will join Mexico great Omar Bravo and he’ll be reunited with former Chelsea teammate Shaun Wright-Phillips. In the board room, Drogba will join an ownership group that includes the likes of Diplo, Pete Wentz from the band Fall Out Boy, and LA Dodgers pitcher Brandon McCarthy. It’s as if the club was formed by someone filling out a Mad Libs in the waiting room of a dentist’s office.
Drogba joins Phoenix with the intention of helping to lift them from the second division to MLS—which is a tricky proposition given that there are a number of clubs and cities vying for a spot in the league and promotion/relegation doesn’t exist in the U.S. In addition to this, Drogba will also have to navigate the rare combination of being both a player and a part-owner. With all this in mind, here are some of the unique challenges he will face:
- If a teammate argues with him over who gets to take a penalty, can he fine the guy right then and there?
- Does he have to pretend to like Fall Out Boy?
- How much should he pay himself?
- If it’s not enough, should he demand he sell himself?
- What if he wants to stay, but they get a really good offer for him, should he sell himself then?
- Can he sack manager Frank Yallop if he doesn’t play him enough?
- If he decides that his pal Shaun Wright-Phillips isn’t working out and has to go, can he say it was Diplo’s decision?
- Should he just change the name of the team to the Phoenix Drogbas?
- Seriously, who invited Pete Wentz?
- Will MLS be afraid that if they don’t admit Phoenix to the league, he will call them “a fucking disgrace” on live television?
- If his teammates complain about the owners not springing for first-class plane tickets, does he lecture them on controlling costs or does he pretend his music is too loud to be able to hear them?
- Does he let an increasingly desperate David Beckham join the ownership group?
- If his teammates pass to him rather than shoot themselves, should he give them a bonus?
- How awkward will it be if the other players try to negotiate new contracts with him in the dressing room?
- Should he be the groundskeeper and team chef, too?
- When he’s not playing, does he sit in the owner’s box or on the bench?
- Since he’ll be using it too, should he spring for the extra soft toilet paper in the bathroom or secretly carry around just enough for himself?
As you can see, this situation is fraught with peril. But Didier Drogba has ended civil wars. If anyone can navigate these waters, it’s him.
Montreal can’t draw properly spaced lines, Seattle mocks them
A little penalty box banter in the MLS playoffs
With a club record 61,004 packed into Olympic Stadium to see the Montreal Impact host Toronto FC in the maple leaf derby/MLS Cup semifinals, the match had to be delayed. Because the dumdums who drew the lines on the pitch made the penalty box too narrow. Seriously. This is a thing that happened at a professional match attended by more than 60,000 people.
Once that got sorted, Montreal went on to win the first leg of the tie 3–2, but Seattle, host of the other semifinal against Colorado, weren’t about to let that one slide.
And to put Montreal’s win into a loss sandwich, Didier Drogba announced that he’s leaving the Impact at the end of the season immediately after the match.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise given that he tried to slip out of his contract to return to Chelsea back in January and then refused to play last month. That said, Montreal have gotten better results without Drogba than with him, so maybe this is his attempt to ensure they go on to win the MLS Cup. Never question Didier Drogba. The man ended a civil war. He can do what he wants.
Didier Drogba had to be held back from New York fans after loss
EMBARRASING from Didier Drogba and a pair of #RBNY fans who need to be restrained from each other by security pic.twitter.com/hYtByeTAKN
— Matthew Klimberg (@KlimbergCalcio) September 25, 2016
Didier Drogba had a pretty miserable Saturday. First, he had to watch Arsenal embarrass Chelsea 3-0. This alone was enough to share a catty tweet aimed at Theo Walcott implying that if he was still at Chelsea, the result would have been different.
Didier Drogba puts some old man wizard magic on a free kick
In the second minute of Montreal’s match against Orland, Didier Drogba took a free kick and added a bit of wizard magic to it. The ball moved in slow motion and right at the goalkeeper, hypnotizing him into pushing the ball into his own net.
Orlando went on to win 4-1 after Montreal’s goalkeeper was sent off early in the second half, but only because Drogba didn’t feel like stopping time all together and scoring five more times while everyone else was frozen in place.
Didier Drogba scores against Arsenal even after moving to MLS
During his time with Chelsea, Didier Drogba scored 13 goals in 15 appearances against Arsenal. So when he ended his second stint with the Blues and moved to a different continent, Arsenal likely thought they were finally free from his tyranny. They were wrong.
Didier Drogba scores backheels when he wants
Six minutes into his first appearance of the MLS season, Didier Drogba scored a 56th-minute backheel equalizer against Chicago. Drogba’s debut was delayed by his refusal to play on turf in order to preserve his 38-year-old knees and almost didn’t happen at all as considered retiring to join Guus Hiddink’s coaching staff at Chelsea back in December.
DTotD: Didier Drogba pulls goalkeeper’s leg, gets meme’d
Didier Drogba has been showing his MLS opposition who’s boss with 12 goals in 13 matches since joining the league, but in Sunday’s playoff game against Columbus, he showed goalkeeper Steve Clark what happens when you stop him from scoring. You get your leg pulled.
Clark had the ball at his feet at the edge of the box when Drogba saw an opportunity to try and make a tackle and strip him of it, but Clark got the pass off just in time and Drogba took him down, then pulled his leg as he tried to get back up. Because…reasons.
Drogba was shown a yellow card and Montreal went on to win the first leg of the tie 2-1. Our friends at Howler Magazine, meanwhile, got busy with photoshop…
Didier Drogba brings Mourinho mind games to MLS
Didier Drogba has gotten off to a tremendous start in MLS, scoring eight goals in his first eight matches, but scoring prowess isn’t all he’s brought to the league. During Wednesday’s match against the New York Red Bulls, Drogba demonstrated what he’s learned from former manager Jose Mourinho on the art of getting under an opponent’s skin.
Didier Drogba gets raucous welcome at Montreal airport
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.