Exit, stage left: Drogba, Chelsea reunited for one final scene

Didier Drogba’s shadow still looms large at Stamford Bridge.

Scoring 157 goals over a trophy-laden eight-year spell will do that to you.

A hulking striker who became larger than life during his time in West London, the Ivorian was the focal point of the club’s rejuvenation under Roman Abramovich, who took over as owner in 2003.

The Russian billionaire had cash to burn. A few million here, a couple more over there, and before you could blink Chelsea had spent just over £153 million on 18 players in the first year of Abramovich’s reign. 

Some of those men have become club icons (see: Cech, Petr). Others, not so much – perhaps Adrian Mutu rings a bell?

But none of them could rival Drogba, who arrived the following summer from French club Marseille for £24 million.

Built like a vending machine and powered by a Ferrari engine, he was the perfect blend of speed and raw, frightening power. In a league renowned for the physicality of its defenders, Drogba often times looked like a man amongst boys.

He scored 156 goals for the club, won three Premier League titles, four FA Cups and two League Cups. But it was his 157th marker that helped bring him, and Chelsea, the elusive Champions League crown in May of 2012.

He sure has a flair for the dramatic.

Bayern Munich goalkeeper Manuel Neuer was little more than a spectator for 88 minutes that evening at the Allianz Arena. The stewards would have been forgiven for rushing onto the pitch and asking the German shot-stopper to present his admission ticket.

And then Drogba, who four years earlier watched from the dressing room as his side fell to Manchester United at the same hurdle after he was sent off for a petulant act of stupidity, rose to the occasion and delivered his greatest scene yet.

A thunderous header into the top corner. It looked so easy. It looked so familiar.

Chelsea had life.

Outshot 26-7 and conceding 20 corner kicks while winning just one of their own, the Blues had, improbably, pushed the match to a penalty shootout.

Scorsese himself could not have written a better script.

Chelsea was Jake LaMotta. The Raging Bull had been battered by a vastly superior opponent, making way for the feeling of inevitability that was so pronounced in Goodfellas. Drogba and Chelsea were going the way of Henry Hill. All of their work in the buildup to this moment would soon count for nothing.

Then the plot twist.  And you thought the ending of The Departed was good.

Drogba, almost the villain himself after conceding a penalty to Bayern in extra time, stepped up to take the final kick in the penalty shootout. 

There was only going to be one outcome.

Now donning the yellow and red of Galatasaray, Drogba – who turns 36 next month – will have one final chance to add another memorable scene to his Chelsea story when the two clubs meet in Champions League action later today.

It’s fitting that Jose Mourinho, the man he considers somewhat of a father figure – and who also wrote a touching foreword in his autobiography – will be on the opposing bench.

Try as they might, Chelsea’s current flock of strikers in Fernando Torres, Demba Ba and Samuel Eto’o is not capable of matching the Ivorian’s output – much to the disdain of the Portuguese manager.

I guess £57 million just doesn’t buy you what it once did.

But perhaps the trio can learn from their counterpart.

After all, he too felt the sting of criticism during his time in London, often for his propensity to drop to the turf under the slightest – and sometimes nonexistent – challenge. It was infuriating as it was hilarious.

This is, after all, a man who stands 6-foot-2, 185 pounds, and all too often left fans searching the stadium for the proverbial sniper.

Following Chelsea’s elimination from the Champions League in 2009 at the hands of Barcelona, there were the infamous scenes of the big striker berating referee Tom Henning Ovrebo before deeming the match “a [expletive] disgrace.”

But none of that matters now.

That performance at the Allianz Arena almost two years ago erased any ill memories of the veteran attacker in the hearts and minds of the Chelsea faithful, as evidenced by the orange banner that now hangs at the West End of Stamford Bridge.

[Courtesy: Daily Mail]

"Drogba may never play for Chelsea again," Martin Tyler said after the final spot kick that night in Munich, "but he will never be forgotten. He’s immortal at this football club."

Hyperbole? Not quite. Drogba was voted as the club’s greatest-ever player in a November 2012 poll conducted by Chelsea Magazine.

Nothing he does today at the Türk Telekom Arena – or in the return leg at Stamford Bridge on March 18 – will ever change that.

After eight dramatic years, maybe a subdued ending is the best possible conclusion to his tale.