In a parallel universe, there is a 6ft 3in muscular Ivorian doing the accounts at a small, probably Parisian-based company.
At 18, Didier Drogba didn’t know he was going to be a professional footballer. He was studying accountancy at a college in Le Mans. At the same age, Wayne Rooney was completing a £30million transfer from Everton to Manchester United, Michael Owen was scoring wonder goals for England at a World Cup and Fernando Torres was captain of Atlético Madrid.
Not for Drogba the pre-destined career of the likes of his team-mate Frank Lampard. Not for him the glitz, glamour and multi-million pound book deals before he’s out of his teens. He’d played football; he was good, a prolific scorer for the youth teams of semi-professional club Levallois in the Parisian suburbs – where his parents had eventually followed the young Didier in the early 1990s.
Their decision to send their five-year-old son to live with his uncle Michel Goba – a journeyman striker in the second tier of French football with the likes of Brest, Dunkerque and Abbeville – wasn’t met with the greatest reaction from the young Drogba, and the homesick child would often return to the Ivory Coast to be with his mum and dad. It was a timidity that wouldn’t last.
He became an apprentice at Le Mans, training alongside doing his studies. Coach Marc Westerloppe claimed that it took the forward four years to be able to adjust to the rigours of training every day and playing a match at weekends. By 21, he realised that it was make or break for his football aspirations, and his gradual improvement forced him to the fringes of the Le Mans side, who were then in Ligue 2.
His first team debut arrived in 1999, before that most cherished of items for the young man from Abidjan, a contract to play football professionally.
Not a regular goalscorer, he was in and out of the side in the next couple of years, with Le Mans boss Thierry Goudet often preferring the future Glasgow Rangers and Hull City striker Daniel Cousin upfront. By 2002 he was ready for a change of scenery, and Le Mans accepted an £80,000 offer for him from Guingamp halfway through the 2001/02 season, a move that saw Drogba move up to the top tier of French football. He’d finally made it further than his uncle.
In north-west France, Drogba flourished. His goals helped keep Guingamp in Ligue 1, and then stay there the following season. Linking up, then as now, with winger Florent Malouda, he scored 17 goals in 34 games in his second season, enough to persuade Marseille to part with £3.3million for his services in the summer of 2003. The rapid rise was about to begin.
Drogba hit 32 goals in his 55 games for Marseille in the 2003/04 season, earning the Ligue 1 player of the year award. He hit five goals in his six Champions League games, and then six more as L’OM swept aside the likes of Liverpool, Inter Milan and Newcastle United to reach the Uefa Cup final, where they lost to Rafael Benitez’ Valencia. Benitez would move to England that summer, but it was another manager headed for these shores who had seen enough to make Drogba the spearhead of his grand plans.
Jose Mourinho authorised Chelsea’s £24million purchase of the forward in July 2004, and the career of arguably Chelsea’s greatest centre forward began.
There have been wobbles. He’s still not everyone’s cup of tea. He’s petulant, often arrogant and it would be nice if the giant, hulking forward was seen writhing around on the floor a bit less, but he is who he is, and has proven just how important he is for his club this season.
Last night he was crowned African Footballer of the Year for a second time, not a bad present on his 32nd birthday.
With Chelsea chasing prizes both at home and abroad, and an African World Cup just around the corner, his place amongst the modern legends could be secured in the coming months.
The world of accounting doesn’t know what it’s missing.
Mark Jones
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