Part 2: Player Profile – Didier Drogba
During Drogba’s run in the previous season (2009-2010), his ability to score goals from set pieces enhanced. Players like Cristiano Ronaldo use a different technique while Robin Van Persie uses his “curler” to confuse the goalkeeper, it is Drogba’s side foot technique that allows him to hit the ball with power and on target.
Arsenal, Hull and Portsmouth will simply agree to the fact that Drogba is a deadly free kick taker and he can easily score goals if he is allowed to take them. When Drogba scored a goal in Wembley during the FA Cup Final match, he became the “only” man in history to have scored in six different English domestic cup finals.
During his career, Didier Drogba has gone through very few disappointments. One of the few would be his nation’s exit in the first round of the FIFA World Cup 2010. Despite breaking his elbow a week before the competition actually commenced, Drogba showed why he is known as a “powerhouse striker” and he pressed his coach to let him play for his country, as it might be his “last” FIFA World Cup ever.
However, things didn’t really go well for him or his team. With Drogba injured, he didn’t really play at his full potential and his team was paired up in a difficult group. During the group stages, the Africans were paired up with Brazil and Portugal and it wasn’t very easy for them to even “try” to qualify for the next round.
Brazilians are famous for their amazing football and they have won the highest number of FIFA World Cups in the world, while Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portuguese side just didn’t want to concede a goal. Ivory Coast suffered a loss against Brazil while the match between Portugal and the African side ended in a goalless draw. Even though they managed to defeat the Koreans, they still didn’t manage to qualify for the next round as Portuguese were the ones who drew to Brazil and both the teams went on to the pre quarter finals stages.
The other disappointment that Drogba has faced is the UEFA Champions League, as Chelsea are the team that did not even manage to win even a single Champions League title, even after winning the English Premier League.
Even though he has been called a “selfish” striker in many reports and he has been known as a player who just wants to score goals for himself, but he is actually different from all such attributes. He was included in the Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. This was basically because of the fact that Didier Drogba has done a lot of humanitarian work and has donated a lot for his homeland. Didier Drogba donated 3 million pounds for the building of a school in his country and he even managed to make it to the cover of Times Magazine, as Bill Clinton was the only other personality who was on the same cover.
However, all that does not really matter on the pitch when it comes down to scoring goals and winning matches. It is not the “humanitarian” work that really matters when it is about recognizing Didier Drogba as a person. He bagged himself a lot of awards after his amazing “golden boot winning” run in the 2009-2010 season, he even managed to win the “African Footballer of the Year” title even though players like Toure Yaya and Kolo Toure were included in the list of nominees that could win this award.
Yaya Toure used to play for Barcelona back then and he won the Spanish League and even managed to reach the semi final stage of the UEFA Champions League but it was still this African player who managed to win the African player of the year for himself. Moreover, he managed to be in the PFA team of the season and he even managed to be Chelsea’s player of the Campaign.
For Drogba it was simply an “over growing” list of accomplishments as the golden boot winner is still in great form as the new English Premier League has already begun.
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