Happy Drogba

(Birthday tidings for Didier Drogba dispatched to us from the one and only Madsear, our football correspondent from the other side.)

One of the main advantages of living in France and in The Netherlands (aside from chicks, great food and even greater drugs) is the fact that you are able witness future football megastars before they blossom and incidently move to bigger and richer (but not necessarilly better by any means) championships like the Premiership, La Liga and The Serie A. In some rare cases, we're fortunate enough to see them become legendary before our eyes, something that has happened quite a few times in recent history. France was blessed by the presence of some of today's most prominent figures in the football world while they were still honing their skills on the pitch - Ronaldinho Gaucho, El Hadji Diouf, Edmilson, Petr Cech, Michael Essien, Mahamadou Diarra and many others....

But out of all these amazing players, none of them had as much impact on his team nor became a legend while still playing in France as quickly as Didier Drogba did during the 2003/2004 season. When Marseille's Manager Alain Perrin demanded to his President to exclusively buy one striker, the most renowned free agents were rumoured to be headed to "la Canebière" - when the choice was revealed to be Drogba, every Marseille fan was filled with disappointment and expected a season of mediocrity. Drogba was dismissed as a player not fit to be a leader in the toughest city of them all. Sure he had shown promise the year before but he seemed too sweet, technically limited and, more importantly at the time, not glamourous enough to wear the sky-blue crossed jersey.

Boy were they wrong! Drogba scored 32 times and gave 11 assists during that season and lead Marseille to the UEFA Cup final against Valencia after defeating Newcastle, Liverpool, Porto and Internazionale Milan. Naturally, he was elected Player of the Year by his peers and when then Porto manager José Mourinho arrived at Chelsea, the first name he placed on his wishlist was, well, you know.

Drogba turns 29 years old today and, in his third season at Chelsea, he has never been so efficient as he is now. He picked up his African Player of the Year Award last week in Ghana alongside teammate and second runner-up Michael Essien. He's also the frontrunner for next year's Ballon d'Or. For today, however, I just want to reminisce and go back to a time when we here in France had him all to ourselves.

Happy birthday Didier and come back home.