Didier Drogba, true Blues legend
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On July 24, 2004 a whopping 24 million pound deal was signed between Chelsea and Olympique de Marseille, who let go of a Marseille legend for that amount.
Such was the impact of the player that his shirt was framed at the Notre Dame de la Garde or the tribunal chamber of the erstwhile King of Marseille. This despite him being only a season old at the famous Ligue 1 club.
Given the player was bought for just 3.3 million and had got them to a Uefa Cup final, scoring goals in victories against Liverpool, Inter Milan and Newcastle United, the then record fee of 24 million pounds was far too tempting for Les Phocéens to not capitalise on.
And thank god they didn’t, because the English Premier League would not have been gifted Didier Drogba.
His Chelsea adventure was up and running by his 3rd game, where he scored a header against Crystal Palace.
Drogba’s role at Chelsea was usually to torment the defenders he was up against on his own for 90 minutes while sum numpty, with the first touch of a drunk rhinoceros (a.k.a Paolo Ferriera, Ricardo Carvalho, Alex and David Luiz have filled this role greatly over the years for the blues), would punt the ball up to him and he would muscle his way to scoring.
And his fairy tale ended just like his 8-year career at Chelsea. Much like Aragorn, Drogba lone-rangered for 85 minutes and popped up to score an equaliser.
He proceeded then to extra time and tripped Franck Ribery in the 6-yard box. But then, who would have thought, Arjen Robben will flunk the resulting penalty.
Enter the dreaded shootouts and nine kicks later it was the man himself who stepped up to the plate and knocked it in to the left bottom corner and delivered Roman Abramovic, the owner, his most coveted prize.
As he possibly leaves for China, Drogba feels Torres is the future for Chelsea. Well, he’ll need a hotline to the almighty to stand a chance to touch the shadow of Didier.
As of now, all we can do is thank Drogba for the memories.
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