Every team needs and craves for a player that can turn up on the big occasion, a man to rise above the rest and lead from the front. Chelsea will arrive at Wembley on Sunday, equipped with the best man for the job. Eight goals in eight Wembley games (excluding community shield games), Didier Drogba loves playing at Wembley.
The Ivorian made himself the go to man in the Chelsea side whenever a final has come around. Writing his name in the history books and breaking records along the way. The striker has come up with goals against the likes of Arsenal, Manchester United, more recently Liverpool and Sunday’s opponents Tottenham over the years. He has managed to build his own reputation on the biggest stages, obtaining the nickname ‘The King of finals and the King of Wembley’. He currently holds the record for the most goals in FA Cup finals, having scored in four. Although it is not just Wembley finals that Drogba has left his mark on, Drogba scored in two finals at the Millennium Stadium and two of his most famous goals of all time, the equalising goal in Munich and the Champions League winning penalty against Germany’s Bayern Munich, making himself a club icon across the world.
Despite hitting the age of thirty six years old, his return to Chelsea has shown everyone he does still possess tremendous ability. Granted, Drogba is nowhere near the player that once took Stamford Bridge by storm. However when Drogba has been called upon this season he has scored important goals, including goals against Manchester United and Tottenham in the Premier League which has aided Chelsea in their title charge.
Now Diego Costa has served his three match suspension, Drogba’s chance of starting against Tottenham look bleak to say the least. Does that mean he won’t have an impact on the game? Absolutely not, Drogba looks set to start on the bench at Wembley. But what a player and what an option for Jose Mourinho to have on your bench in a game like this. For players like, Oscar and Eden Hazard, to look to, to witness his stature in the big games, will be something they can learn from immensely.
I have no doubt Drogba will feature at some point during the game on Sunday, albeit off the bench. However his impact will not just start from the moment he walks onto the famous Wembley pitch, he will be leading from the bench. I have no doubt he will be like a second captain in the dressing room, rallying the team together, but offering a calm and experience head also. In cup finals, form goes out the window, it’s a winner takes all scenario and what better player to have in your squad. In spite of not starting, when Didier Drogba is playing in a final, he is not your average striker, he is a man on a mission. No normal striker would have been able to provide one of the best headed goals in history in the last minute of a Champions League final, against the best goal keeper in the world. It was destined to be Didier Drogba to deliver that goal.
With Drogba and Chelsea, there is always positivity around cup finals. A never say die attitude, which I believe has been installed in the players from the memory of the Champions League final in 2012. Cup finals are where these players want to be, they want to be winning trophies and it’s their time to step up to the mark.
It would be great moment for Drogba if he was to feature and even score on Sunday, with the curtains closing on his footballing career. To win a trophy and the winning goal to come from the player who has turned up on the big stage on so many different occasions for Chelsea over the years, would be nothing short of a perfect and spectacular send off. Drogba was recently voted ‘Chelsea’s greatest ever player’, should Drogba decide to continue come the end of this season, it would be just another great chapter in his on-going Chelsea career.
