By AARON CRANFORD
The Montreal Impact are only a signature away from landing the international star striker the club has been hunting for since Marco DiVaio retired.
According to ESPN FC, the Impact acquired the rights to Didier Drogba from the Chicago Fire Sunday, and the club is ready to sign the long-time Chelsea star to an 18-month contract reportedly worth $3 million per year.
The Fire had the discovery claim on Drogba and were actively trying to bring the forward to Chicago, but in the end, being able to live in a French-speaking city was a factor that figured heavily into the Ivorian’s decision.
It is the second time in two seasons that the Fire were unable to land a high-profile target only to have that target wind up with another MLS team. Last season the Fire tried to sign U.S. Men’s National Team midfielder Jermaine Jones, falling just short of a signature due to a blind draw conducted by the league, which sent Jones to the New England Revolution.
Drogba, 37, would give the Impact the lead striker the club was desperate to add this summer. The Impact are currently in sixth place in the MLS Eastern Conference, with just 18 matches played, giving the team games in hand on the teams they are currently chasing.
What do you think about this development? Are you excited to see Drogba enter the league?
Share your thoughts below.
Thank you slow and johnny razor for clear explanation.
I think i ‘get’ the discovery list idea. It makes sense. Europe (and other places in the world) have many world class players. How to bring them into mls without a bidding war? Let each mls make a short list. A wish list, recruiting list, a special scouting list, call it what you like. Limit the number of names that each mls team can put on their lists. Submit this list to mls front office. Mls can put the teams in some kind of order, as in draft order, etc. (Mls probably allows teams to trade places on this list, also like draft order.) If a player overseas wants to join, mls, now you have a way to do it without starting am all out bidding war. Effectively, you limit competition for bidding to only a few teams highest on the list. Teams that put the player on their lists were the most interested.
All in all, i think it has merit. I think its not a bad system. I think the key is to apply the rules fairly. The jermaind jones blind draw being the counterexample.
Thank you for not whining. Holy moly what a bunch of whiners.
quit – lol omg yes, isn’t it? and i thank you, quit, for your long history of not whining at this site and encouraging others not to whine.
slow – that’s normal all over the world, yes? and look at the players salaries. see?
razor – excellent point! do you remember this?
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/impact-trade-ching-to-dynamo-for-superdraft-pick-1.1167339
in 2013, dominic kinnear left brian ching unprotected for the expansion draft.
(perhaps thinking ching is like a piece of furniture around houston, nobody would dare take him?)
montreal impact expansion newbie coach jessie marsch took him.
marsch then immediately trades ching back to houston for a first round pick in the next year’s superdraft.
this was considered to be highly controversial by fans at the time.
i think ching made it clear beforehand that he will not play anywhere except in houston for kinnear.
my 2 cents:
chicago cashing in on drogba and montreal cashing in on ching in 2013 are two examples of “how the system is supposed to work.” generally, all of the player and money mechanisms are set up where you put all the mls teams in reverse single-table order. meaning, the team with the worst record at the top, the team with the best record at the bottom. the purpose is to create parity in the league. expansion teams with no record, or struggling teams with poor records will get something. either a player they can use, directly. or some money or some future draft pick or something that, indirectly, will put a player on the field for them in the future. chicago MUST cash in on drogba, and marsch was correct to cash in on the unprotected ching, i would argue. imo in a league with parity mechanisms, you must cash in every chance you get or you will never rise to the top.
How about this? If a player wants to sign with an MLS team and the MLS team wants to sign the player, they do so (subject of course to the team having a DP spot available if it’s a DP level salary). A little simpler don’t you think?
The problem is if I’m a bad franchise in say a place not many World Stars want to play, like I don’t know Chicago. I watch the soccer sites when all the big teams are in the States for Summer friendlies and when one says “I might play in MLS someday.” I put them on my discovery list knowing they’ll never play here and its free money when they want to play somewhere else.
Good signing. One because of Drogba, two because it is one of the “smaller” clubs who got him. Drogba is still class as a player and more so as a person. Any time that Jozy Altidore gets to see him up close and in person is a plus at this time. Every young player should examine the way he walks and talks because he is the epitome of a professional.
A veteran of the premier league wasn’t discovered by the Chicago Fire. The single entity doesn’t bother me but the discovery list does.
Fire should’ve pushed to sign Lucas Podolski. Was available and Polish speaker probably more open to Chicago.
Yeah but you gotta have vision, and who has time for that.
MLS is a retirement league. You can’t tell me it’s not.
MLS is garbage. The national team would be even worse off if it weren’t for our military men planting seeds overseas. Thank goodness for the Germans at least we have some technical players now.
MLS was supposed to be a pipeline for talent lt but isn’t.
How do you say grandpa Drogba if French? Granpiere Drogba or something like that.
Wow Martha, I appreciate that its great that we have options in Europe too and that we should very careful about which player we bring in the league but these words that I’m reading are so darn negative. Just curious, are you trolling or just had a bad day or what?
I am not trolling I am utterly disappointed in US soccer. I am a season ticket holder. I bought the tickets to support US soccer but MLS is just crap. Its even worse that my team is the crappiest team in this crappy league. This is my last season as a ticket holder. MLS is equivelant to about Aleve baseball and quality just isn’t there. If Serie A, La liga, and premiership are the Majors, Holland Turkey are bout triple A
Mexico Japan championship are AA, then MLS is A along with like Qatar.
They quality and technical abilities of the players aren’t very good. Its still an kick and run hack a man and grab his shirt league. 80% of the defenders cant complete a pass and the “Stars” ar marginal on the Nats as well. Are Zusi, Rimando, Davis, Evans, Wondo nat stars NOOO they are also rans. Bradley Clint and howard did not become World Class till they went overseas and Bradley and Altidore have regressed since coming back.
We are happy when an MLS team reaches the Mickey mouse CCL before we lose when MLS should be aiming for libertadores.
Its not all MLS’s fault. The youth system and coaches are crap and no one plays in the street.
When you add these to their bizarro world make up as you go along so long LA gets what they want rules.
I’ve been saying this for years. What needs to happen is that the Liga Mx Asenso should incorporate MLS, keep Seattle, LAG, SKC, and maybe Portland and fold the rest of the junk.
Yeah that would be great for US Soccer. Clown.
Martha, you may be too young to remember this but twenty years ago we had no professional league here. Zero. It didn’t exist.
Now we have a 20 team (soon to be 24) league playing in mostly SSS averaging higher per game attendance than the NBA or NHL and getting $90m a year in TV money. Last year a USMNT with a majority of its players playing in MLS survived the most difficult group in the World Cup and went out in the Round of 16 in extra time against a Belgium team stacked with world class players. Rome wasn’t built in a day and comparing MLS to leagues that have been around 100 plus years is ridiculous.
I agree. Glass half full. t takes time to build a league. The NFL and MLB all had various issues and rules and it took trial and error to iron them out. Like the great Axl Rose sang “Patience”.
Oh no, please don’t drop your alledged-unspecified-season ticket.
We all want to sit next to you at games and have a whinefest.
You could tell me I am a cr@p coach again. Maybe even tell me how I could do better. Maybe we could move down a few rows and you could tell the players how much they stink. Give some advice during an injury time out.
En francais, on dit “grand-père Drogba”. Mais, pour moi, Drogba est fort, encore. Le probleme est il ne peut pas jouer chaque semaine.
Si tu regardes son”petit” salaire de $3M (compare aux autres stars internationals dans la MLS), il est entendu que Didier ne jouera pas chaque semaine. Il faut simplement expliquer ca aux supporters.
Martha,
You should try watching soccer. Seriously.
Jamaica was in the Gold Cup Final. Why? There were MLS players all over that team that’s why.
Not a pipeline. Good grief.
Ya, huge mistake to acquire a guy like Drogba. I mean a 37 year old Di Viao only finished second in the scoring race with Bernier taking most of the penalties… Just not good enough!
Who gives two sh!ts about the age of a player if he has the ability to play? There is nothing to suggest that Drogba will not improve both the team and the league.
This is BAD on SO MANY levels:
– Drogba ends up in Montreal – how exactly? MLS needs EXPLICIT rules and a clear process for distributing players within the league. This is shady on so many levels.
-Although Drogba is talented, him coming here at 38 is not a good sign. We are looking more and more like a retirement league, Weren’t we trying to move away from that. Please do not try to convince me that Drogba is anything more than a spot starter in the premier league any more. He cannot go in week-in, week-out take the pounding for 38 weeks in addition to cup games. He is a spot starter or sometime sub. We should not be getting that kind of player, maybe before he went to China or Turkey 3 years ago for 1 1/2 seasons not now.
– MLS seems to be ignoring that the level of the median player is what is important. You cannot have 1-2 players of exception quality, 3-4 mediocre players and call that a team. If teams can spend 3 million on a designated player, then there is no reason that the salary cap shouldn’t be $5 million.
So two months ago he was playing for Chelsea and now he’s too crappy to play in the mls for 18 months. I don’t think he went downhill that fast. If he was good enough to finish this season in premier league, he should be good in the mls until the end of next year.
It’s like you did not read what he said. Drogba is not an everyday player in the Premier League. Chelsea DEFINITELY did not play him that way. His skill set is still there, but the recovery no longer is. Even EPL analyst stated that he does not have the ability to start every game in the EPL. As such, retirement league.
His other option was signing for Inter. Does that make Serie A a retirement league? He would start on about 99% of teams in the Europe.
I get that MLS should target players closer to their prime, but Drogba is still a very capable player and will make the league lots of $. I think we would all rather see more Giovinco’s, but there aren’t many foreign nationals in their prime willing to play in MLS yet. Its not like they picked Drogba over a Costa. He is a good signing who will boost the PR of the league. MLS needs ratings to be able to boost that salary cap everyone keeps talking about. TV revenue will be the #1 driver of that. Time to get on board.
To be clear, Montreal Impact looks like a retirement team. Don’t project that on the whole league. MTL has a history of signing old players. 38 year-old Drogba is a true-to-form Montreal signing.
The Discovery list doesn’t make much sense. Chicago will get some allocation money out of this but if someone doesn’t want to sign with a team you can’t really make them. Just because a team had him on a list doesn’t mean anything to Drogba or any other player from abroad.
Its not like they discovered him on some pitch in Cote d’Ivoire when he was 16. “A hey this Drogba guy plays for Chelsea he looks pretty good, let’s put him on our discovery list. No, no save a spot for this Christiano Renaldo guy he plays for this team in Spain with a twitter handle for its name @RealMadrid I bet he wants out of that shoddy operation.”
Single entity has to end.
Yeah…. single entity must end, (let’s add we must have pro/rel) x1,000,000,000,000.
Lets get real though… all the money invested was put in based on that model, and there is no financial motivation whatsoever to do so, so will not happen. There are lots of ways to tweak, unleash this system, increase freedom of individual clubs/player movement so it isn’t an issue fans need to concern themselves with. Probably more constructive/realistic to push for that.
Is this comment related to the story in any way? Or a general observation?
It was. Really I just feel bad for the Chicago Fire.
Yeah well that’s def true. But in the end, these owners would be terrible under any league structure.
Drogba didn’t want to play in Chicago. No one should feel bad for them – they got something (allocation money which apparently turned into Gilberto) when they deserved nothing. If there were no single entity, they wouldn’t have even got that.
Not saying it shouldn’t but without single entity Chicago doesn’t even get a call back from Drogba’s agent. He’d be in NY, LA, SEA, or Orlando.