Drogba makes MLS debut in Montreal’s home loss

Didier Drogba, by all accounts, is a wonderful human being, but he wasn’t going to be available to media in Vancouver ahead of Wednesday’s Amway Canadian Championship final, just like he didn’t talk to media in Montreal after his MLS debut Saturday. It was the Union’s first win in six visits to Montreal. He is also the all-time leading scorer for the Ivory Coast national team with 65 goals. How do you think this will affect his performance on Saturday against the Philadelphia Union? Expect Le Toux to be another solid value play next Saturday against the New England Revolution.

Morales opened the scoring in the 12th minute, converting from the spot after the Sounders’ Roman Torres was called for a hand ball in the area.

The bright side for the Union among the uncertainty is that there’s not much mystery about what the 37-year-old brings. As a bonus, that star happens to be one of the best strikers of his generation. Twice as a member of Schalke 04 of the German Bundesliga, he played against Drogba during Champions League competition. “It’s been a while since he’s played a match”. It was also the third time in four matches the Union have allowed three or more goals.

Records: Union (6-13-6, 24 points); Impact (8-9-4, 28 points).

“He is still very unsafe, especially in the box with his strong body”, Barnetta said after practice Thursday. Do we read anything into this? That puts the spotlight directly on their new No. 11 Didier Drogba. The Impact enjoyed success in 2013 around Marco Di Vaio, then 37, as the out-and-out center forward. So obviously, the atmosphere will be more electric, dynamic. Michael Bradley is responsible defensively but his position lends itself more in attack leaving a lot of the covering responsibility down to the wide players in the diamond and that’s a lot of space to get wide and try to support the fullbacks defensively. But the advanced scouting is straightforward for someone that numerous Union players watched growing up for almost decade at Europe’s highest levels. But he played through an injury that was a major risk for him to even be on the field. I think you saw when he came here (at first) he did everything that was asked of him.

“It’s exciting to see a guy like Drogba come onto the field and hear the roar”, said Bush. “That’s clear. All over the world, that’s clear”.

Dream weavers aside, no one in la belle ville taking in that Stamford Bridge afternoon, where the Chelsea legend picked up a fourth BPL winners medal, could have dared imagine that just a few short months later Drogba would be swapping out of a Chelsea blue shirt for an Impact one. “You can’t let it go when he says something to you”. A good amount of these tickets were sold as a package for the rest of the season, so that’s encouraging for the 2016 season ticket renewal process coming up.