Impact man: 3 ways Drogba can surpass the legend of Marco Di Vaio
Montreal Impact forward Didier Drogba has returned to the club and is feeling fit and ready to go ahead of the start of the 2016 MLS regular season. Under his current contract, this season will be Drogba's last with the club.
Drogba joined Montreal with tremendous fanfare, the biggest star the club has employed since Italian striker Marco Di Vaio ruled the roost at Stade Saputo.
In what may be his swansong year, the Ivorian striker has one final chance to cement his legend in Canada. Here are 3 things Drogba must do to surpass Di Vaio as the club's greatest icon:
Rip through the scoring record charts
Strikers define themselves by one metric: how often they find the back of the net.
Drogba and Di Vaio are both prolific goal-scorers and the numbers speak for themselves; in three seasons, Di Vaio found the back of the net 40 times, including 20 league goals in 2013. Drogba scored 11 goals in as many games last season in league play, 12 in all competition in 2015.
As it stands, Drogba needs 29 goals in all competitions to overtake Di Vaio entirely, and, should he score more than 20 goals in 2016, he'd also overtake Di Vaio's single-season record.
Lead the Impact to silverware and glory
For all of Montreal's success in 2015 - a berth in the Champions League final chief among them - silverware hasn't followed in abundance. The Vancouver Whitecaps claimed the Canadian Championship title last season and, thus, Drogba won't be playing any Champions League football in the 2016-17 campaign.
At his best, Di Vaio pulled the Impact by its bootstraps into the wild-card round of the 2013 MLS playoffs and guided the team to a Voyageurs Cup victory. If Drogba can help Montreal to at least a Conference Final berth this season, and win Canada's domestic trophy, he'll depart with some tangible success.
An MLS Cup win would also do the trick!
Shed the "former Chelsea star" label ... for now
For all the outpouring of support Drogba has received in Montreal, he remains perpetually tied with his former club Chelsea. The ongoing saga of his potential return to the Blues as Guus Hiddink's assistant didn't help his case in Canada, either.
Di Vaio also enjoyed a storied career in Europe but when he joined Montreal, he was an Impact man through and through. He declared as much, saying "I think of myself as a real Montrealer now."
If Drogba wants to cement his name in Impact history, he needs to show his commitment to his new blue shirt; that means sticking around for the entirety of the 2016 season and publicly shutting down any further attempts to pry him away from Stade Saputo until his contract has run its course.
Commit to the club and its fans for one last hurrah - the doors at Stamford Bridge won't close any time soon.