Part 1: Player Profile – Didier Drogba
Most of the elite sides competing in the UEFA Champions League or other such competitions, operate with a single sole striker. It is usually considered a positive element that one striker is playing for the club while the midfield is busy giving him the ball to score goals for them.
However, many think that it is not all up to that “one striker” who is playing up front, as it is dependent on the players that play around him. If they are good and provide him with good volleys, through balls and long balls, only then can a striker manage to score goals for his club. The 4-4-2 formation is now dead as managers dont play along this formation anymore. Didier Drogba of Chelsea has proved to the world that the 4-4-2 is not the key to success as a single striker can easily take care of the opposition defense as he is one of those players who can single handedly run through a defensive wall to score goals. He showed the world that sometimes “less” can be “more.”
Drogba has all the attributes a striker needs and also the ability to be the “focal point” of the team. He has the perfect strength and power to be a striker and the amazingly powerful Ivorian can easily take possession of the ball from his opponents. All in all he is a perfect striker because of his powerful spring and devastating finishes. He can make a run forward and easily run down his marker to score goals. He is not only a usual goal scorer, he can even score from the borderline, outside the 18 yard box as he challenges Frank Lampard when it comes down to penalty taking. Last season, it was him who took over and scored the second penalty to score a hat trick in the last game.
The Cote d’Ivoire player came out with flying colours in the previous season of the English Premier League as he was the player who managed to score an amazing number of goals. With the help of his fabulous strikes he was able to bag himself the golden boot award for the second time in only four seasons. His “goal scoring” form did not only get him the golden boot for the second time, it also helped his team win the 2009-2010 English Premier League; the last time they won was in 2006.
Every striker who is even close to being a player as good as him, craves to find the net and treats goal scoring like a side project and it’s only this “style of play” that helps the team secure wins. Drogba’s presence in the starting 11 is very important and essential for his team as he is the player who makes goal scoring look “so easy.”
The Chelsea star is 32 years old and he just can’t stop scoring goals for the side. This season he managed to score 37 goals in only 44 matches that he played in all competitions. The strike rate of the African was simply astonishing and that is the reason why he is such an important player for his club. Throughout his run with Chelsea, only the manager Felipe Scolari was the one who thought that Drogba is not bringing an advantage to the team and essentially turned out to be the manager who was forced to depart. However, Ancelotti was the man who did not make a similar judgmental error.
Didier Drogba is not only a forward player, he holds a psychological advantage in the position that he is playing because most of the defenders usually try to mark him while the rest of the team takes advantage of that and they come forward to put goals to their tally. Defenders that are extremely powerful are the only ones that can actually stop a powerhouse like him and mostly defenders simply fear the African Elephant, Didier Drogba.
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