Author: DrogbaGoal

Didier Drogba has admitted that he could have stayed at Chelsea beyond the 2012 campaign had the club reached an agreement with his agent over the new contract.

After months of speculation, it was finally announced after Chelsea’s Champions League win that Drogba would be bringing his eight-year spell at the club to an end. He has become a legend at the club after helping the blues to numerous titles over this period. He has also plundered 157 goals in just 340 matches. Drogba will be returning to Chelsea for the first time since leaving the club in 2012.

His Galatasaray team will be visiting Stamford Bridge for the second leg of the Champions League encounter. There has been a lot of speculation that the Drogba could return to Chelsea in the summer since he is coming to the end of his Galatasaray contract. Mourinho has only increased this speculation by suggesting that the player could return to the club one day, but he failed to speculate in which form. There have been suggestions that Drogba may retire from football at the end of the season and become a coach at Chelsea.

The 36-year-old has revealed that he still owns the place used to live Cobham, as his family continues to reside here.

“Why did I leave Chelsea? I didn’t want to talk about that, but I would have stayed if we could find a satisfactory agreement for both parties. I will live there at the end of my career. My children grew there and like London. I remember at the start I was depressed there, seeing dark sky and night so early every day. The two first seasons I was always saying: I am fed up, I can’t adapt, I want to leave! Finally I held on and there is the result!” said Drogba.

During the recently closed transfer window, there were rumors being spread around concerning the future of Didier Drogba with the Seattle Sounders being the possibility of his next destination of his football career but according to a spokesman of Galatasaray, they have not been informed of anything regarding their player.

“We have not been informed of anything, the speculation sounds like speculation from the foreign press. We would like Drogba to stay and he is happy at the club. If he wanted out, he would have let us known; if he had agreed with a club from the US, he would talk to us about it first.”

Even at his age, Didier Drogba still is a player that many clubs are interested in signing and he has already scored for Galatasaray a total of 8 goals. His contract with the Turkish club expires at the end of the current campaign and when that moment arrives, he is a free agent and is allowed to speak as well as discuss his future with other clubs that might be interested in signing him.

The former Chelsea player has helped Galatasaray on advancing into the last 16 remaining teams which are fighting on the Champions League. The Ivorian forward scored goals against Copenhagen and Juventus which were just enough for his side to secure a spot into the next stages of the European tournament where they have to face off against Chelsea on March 12.

Even with the accomplishments that Didier Drogba managed to complete with Galatasaray it was not enough for him to secure the African Footballer of the Year award as it was given to Manchester City’s Yaya Toure who has won it 3 consecutive times.

The Champions League last 16 draw was completed some weeks ago with Chelsea having to face off against Galatasaray and play against their former star player Didier Drogba who now plays for the Turkish team.

Didier Drogba’s impact with the Chelsea jersey is still being felt today as he is one of the greatest players in the last decade to play for the Premier League club; his last contribution to his former club was during the penalty shootout in the Champions League final against Bayern Munich as he scored the winning goal.

Despite Chelsea having to face off against someone as talented and fearsome as the Ivorian forward, there is nothing but excitement from the players of Chelsea as they can reunite once more with him.

The Spanish midfielder Juan Mata displayed his emotions by saying:

On an official blog post, he said: “We are very excited about this round. We play against Galatasaray, we have Drogba at the Bridge again’’.
“He’s been one of the most important players in Chelsea’s history and someone I was lucky to play with the season when we won the Champions League.”
Didier Drogba later showed his excitement after finding out about the results of the last 16 Champions League draw.

The Ivorian forward posted: “What a draw…I’m the luckiest man in this competition. In both games I’ll be playing at home! See you in a few months.”

Emmanuel Eboue and Didier Drogba were both dropped from receiving fines from the Turkish Football Federation Disciplinary Committee after both players removed their Galatasaray jerseys after the match against SB Elazigspor in support of Mandela who died during that week and were expected to receive some kind of punishment but ultimately they managed to escape the fine and penalties.

The 35 years old former Chelsea player Didier Drogba expressed his pride as Ivory Coast sealed their qualification for the 2014 World Cup with their 1-1 draw against Senegal and thanks to a convincing 3-1 victory in their 1st leg it was more than enough for Ivory Coast to secure their 3rd straight time.

“It will be the third World Cup in a row for a small country like the Ivory Coast”

“It will be the third World Cup in a row for a small country like Cote d’Ivoire. I am proud to be part of this adventure and then enter the history of football in my country with the third consecutive qualification.”

“We’re happy. We’ll go home and enjoy this. We want to do something interesting at the World Cup. The previous two were difficult. Here we hope to have a few more chances and at least qualify from the first round.” Drogba told reporters after the match. The Ivory Coast are one of the drak horses according to the man Chelsea signed, but they still have a chance…!

Didier Drogba was looking to improve his record against La Liga clubs in Europe as he has scored 12 goals against them and expected to add a few more when Galatasaray battled it off against Real Madrid but ultimately lost 4-1 and Drogba failed on finding the back of the net.

He was even hoping to get past Alfredo Di Stefano’s record of 49 goals in European competitions as the former Marseille player has 48 goals to his name and could not extend it any further.

Galatasaray still has the opportunity on advancing through the next round of the Champions League if they can claim a victory against Juventus in their last match of the group stages and they will need the superstar Drogba to emerge if they want to progress any further.

Chelsea legend and current Galatasaray striker Didier Drogba has been awarded the Golden Foot award for 2013, which was conferred to him at a ceremony in Monaco. The Ivory Coast international and arguably the greatest player produced by a country beat a star studded list of nominees which includes players over the age of 28 years and still playing to win the prestigious award.

The award is in its eleventh season and is voted for by fans that select their preferred player from a list of possible candidates over the age of 28 years and the Ivorian international follows Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic to scoop up the award and therefore, becomes the first African player in the history of the award to win it.

Didier Drogba also becomes only the second player who has played in the Premier League to be awarded the Golden Foot, following in the footsteps of Manchester United legend Ryan Giggs, who won the award a couple of years back.

Having earned a legendary status with Chelsea during his eight year spell at the club that saw him win several trophies, capped off by the brilliant win at Munich to win the UEFA Champions League in 2012, the Ivorian moved to Chinese side Shanghai Shenhua before moving back to European football with the Turkish giants midway through last season, leading them to the quarter finals of the UEFA Champions League.

And with Jose Mourinho back at the helm at Chelsea, there was speculation that the Chelsea legend might soon return to his spiritual home once again but Didier Drogba has categorically denied that and has been the star performer for the Red and Gold in their poor start to the European campaign this season as well as the league that has seen their manager sacked already.

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has not ruled out the possibility of an emotional return for club legend Didier Drogba to the club and has also hinted at a possible coaching role for the Ivorian at the club in the near future after his playing retirement.

It was Mourinho who brought the relatively unknown Ivory Coast international striker to the club from Marseille back in 2004 for a whopping fee of £ 24 million and under his tutelage; Drogba led the club to two consecutive Premier League titles and establishing himself as one of the legends at the club. It was mainly Drogba’s heroics that led the club to its first European success in 2012 before he left the club.

His winning penalty in the shoot-out against Bayern Munich in Munich in the final of the UEFA Champions League underlined his iconic status at the club and he has become a cult legend at Stamford Bridge. Didier Drogba left the club to join Chinese side Shanghai Shenhua before returning to Europe with Galatasaray in January this year.

And although he still has a year left to run on his current contract with the Turkish giants, the Portuguese tactician believes Stamford Bridge will always be the spiritual home of the player and has tipped him to return to the club in some capacity in the future.

Speaking to the media, the former Real Madrid manager stated that Didier Drogba is worshipped by the fans of the club and it is perfectly normal before going on to add that he thinks he will return to the club one day. He further mentioned that he is a very important player in the history of the club and will always be in the memory of the fans, the players, the staff as well as the owners.

The manager of the Ivory Coast national football team, Sabri Lamouchi, has made it clear that Didier Drogba’s international career is not over yet and he will be back playing for the national team soon.

Didier Drogba hasn’t represented his country after the African Nations Cup. There have been reports that he doesn’t have a good tuning with the manager and that’s why, he is out of the team, but, Lamouchi has denied those reports.

Talking to the reporters about Drogba’s return, Lamouchi said, “I didn’t have any dispute with him. His exclusion was purely based on form and fitness. He had a very tough last year. He went to China where he found that the standard of play was not as high as he was anticipating. He lost a bit of spark playing there and he was not at his best at all in the African Cup of Nations. So, we decided to give him a break.”

“But, towards the end of the season, he looked good playing for Fenerbahce. There was a spring in his stride which was nice to see.”

“Didier has a lot of experience in international football and it would be wonderful to have him back for our remaining World Cup qualifying matches.”

Lamouchi has been criticized by the football experts in Africa recently for not including experienced players in the squad. According to the experts, Ivory Coast will struggle against quality opponents because of the lack of experience in their squad.

When asked about that, Lamouchi said, “Criticism doesn’t bother me that much. The fact is that we have done pretty well so far in the World Cup qualifiers. Yes, I know that we still need some improvements and we are working hard for that.”

The Real Madrid manager José Mourinho has named the former Chelsea striker Didier Drogba as his favourite player of all-time. Mourinho and Drogba enjoyed a special relationship even though the pair were together for just a few seasons.

It was the Portuguese manager who brought Drogba to Chelsea for £ 24 million back in 2006. Drogba went on to play for eight seasons for the English club during which time he established himself as one of the best in the world. The 34-year-old is currently playing for the Turkish club Galatasaray after ending his Chinese adventure after just six months.

During his time at Chelsea, Drogba and Mourinho managed to lift two league titles along with plenty of other trophies. They came extremely close to reaching the final of the Champions League as well. Mourinho was recently in Turkey in order to scout his Champions League quarter-final opposition – Galatasaray. There were reports in the media that the manager has criticised his former player Drogba, who is likely to come up against him when the two sides met each other. However, Mourinho has said that he will never have anything bad to say about Drogba, and the player is also well aware of the good relationship enjoyed between the two.

“I have had a lot of truly special players, but if I had to choose one I might go for Didier. As a player he is out of this world. I would like to have him by my side, so just imagine. Drogba knows who I am and what I feel in my heart for him. It is impossible that I would talk bad about Drogba. There is no problem because he knows that the last thing I would do is to say anything negative about my relationship with him,” said Mourinho in a recent interview.

The CEO of Juventus, Beppe Marotta has choose to remain tightlipped over the possibility of the former Chelsea striker Didier Drogba coming to the club in the January transfer window. The 34-year-old Ivory Coast international is regarded as one of the best players in the world.

It was only a few months ago that he helped Chelsea win the Champions League almost single-handedly, as he scored against the likes of Barcelona and Bayern Munich en route to the final victory. Chelsea allowed to leave him in the summer on a free transfer due to the concerns about the age and also the future of the star striker Fernando Torres.

Didier Drogba has always said that he is capable of playing at the top level until he is 37 years of age due to the way he looks after himself. He is now currently playing for the Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua. However, it is thought that he is extremely unhappy at the club due to the numerous financial problems and boardroom troubles surrounding the club. Further, the Chinese league comes to an end in the next few weeks, which will mean that he will be not at his best in the upcoming 2013 African cup of nations due to low fitness levels.

“Our results have shown that we are competitive. However, it is clear that we can make some improvements. We will not exclude anything, even if we are not in the market. Our rotation policy? We will play in all competitions to the best of our powers, but the final decision will always be made by the coach,” said the Juventus CEO when asked about the possibility of signing Didier Drogba. If Drogba does indeed come to Turin, then it is likely to be on short-term basis before returning to China.

The striker of Shanghai Shenhua, Didier Drogba, has said that his tenure at Shanghai Shenhua has been fantastic so far and he is enjoying his time here in China.

Drogba has joined Shenhua this summer after leaving Chelsea. He has performed brilliantly for the club since the start of the season. He has played seven matches so far in the ongoing season and has found the back of the net on five occasions. His presence in the Shenhua squad is also drawing more and more people towards the stadium. The Supporters have turned out in huge numbers in all the home matches of Shenhua so far.

On being asked about the Chinese Super League, Drogba said that it’s a fantastic league. People love football here in China and the atmosphere in the stadiums during the matches has been unbelievable. It’s an absolute joy to play in front of Chinese crowd. They make a lot of noise and get behind their team like crazy.

On being asked about the new manager of the club, Sergio Batista, Drogba said that he is a good manager. He has quite a lot of experience in this field. He has managed several teams in the last 12 years. He has come with some good ideas, but, it’s up to the players to execute his plans in the middle.

Batista had also been the coach of Argentina National team. He had resigned from his post in 2011 after the below par performance of the Argentinean team in Copa America last year.

On being asked about the player whom he has found the toughest to compete against, Drogba said that the Barcelona striker, Lionel Messi, is the one who is very hard to control on the field. You can’t afford to relax even for a second if you are up against Messi.

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