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Analyst, TSN Radio 690 Montreal

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On the eve of the Impact’s season opener away to the Whitecaps back in early March, Didier Drogba met with media at Olympic Stadium to calm any fears he wasn’t fully committed to Montreal after dominating the headlines the entire off-season by flirting with his undoubted first football love, Chelsea FC.  

A certain air of Hollywood surrounded proceedings as Impact technical director Adam Braz explained his star player, who possesses just as much stardust as just about any other Montreal-based celebrity, would sit out the Impact’s matches on turf this season.

Drogba was still suffering from a knee injury at the time, and it was clearly apparent from his few appearances on turf in 2015 that the additional demands of a non-natural playing surface had taken their toll on one of the most iconic footballers of this generation. The theory was that by holding Drogba out, the player who set MLS ablaze in 2015 by scoring 12 goals in only 14 appearances would be at his lethal best come the end of the season and the playoffs.

Instead, just as the Impact needed Drogba and his transcending influence the most, the Impact striker was at his destructive worst. His response to being informed that as he was not in the starting eleven for last Sunday’s vital encounter against rival Toronto FC was a refusal to accept his place on the bench.

Holding out of training camp when it began in late January, as Drogba did, is one thing, but throwing your toys of the stroller with the Impact’s playoff position hanging in the balance was an entirely new thing all together.

To the Impact’s credit, the club could not have handled the situation much better than they did. News that Drogba would not be in the squad wasn’t announced until just before the game.

Reading between the lines here, you can be guaranteed that Impact senior management was engaged in diplomacy talks with their star player and his representatives shortly after manager Mauro Biello was first told by Drogba not to include him in last Sunday’s match-day squad. An attempt had to have been made to convince a player, who hadn’t displayed displeasure at being dropped to the bench earlier in the season, to reconsider his decision.

In this modern football era where the integrity of the game is at stake following all that has surfaced about the world governing body this year, combined with all the diving and cheating that is prevalent in the beautiful game of late, to describe what Biello said post-match Sunday was like a breath of fresh air.

"I spoke with him [Saturday] and he didn't accept the fact that he would come off the bench and, in the end, he didn't want to be in the 18 [who dress for a game]," said Biello. "He decided not to play.

"We had a game to play. I had 28 other players to think about and we put the team first."

You’ll not likely ever meet a more impeccable character in football today than the likes of Biello. His calm reasoning shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone following the final whistle of a match where his club, for the second successive time under his stewardship, booked their place in the MLS playoffs.  

By seizing the initiative, Biello took the spotlight away from Drogba and squarely placed it on his own slim shoulders. Additionally, if anyone out there still doubted this was not Biello’s team, he certainly put a lid on that thinking.

The Impact’s announced Tuesday that calmer heads had indeed prevailed and the dispute was settled. Owner Joey Saputo also deserves significant credit for how he quarterbacked his club’s latest crisis.

Drogba emerges from this with more questions than answers. No need for the Impact’s second top scorer this season to explain events from his perspective to the media. The fact his teammates carved out a desirable outcome last Sunday against a team many have pegged to go all the way this season should give Drogba an opportunity to respond on the pitch.

With Drogba’s contract expiring at season’s end, he certainly won’t want this sorry and completely avoidable incident to bookmark his Impact era — an 18-month or so term that began with the Beatlemania-like scenes that greeted his arrival in Montreal back in late July of 2015.

Drogba has certainly brought benefits to his club, and the MLS it must be said, alongside the type of burdensome baggage Saputo would have preferred not to have had to deal with. Last Sunday’s events likely had the potential to be the most damaging.

There is a precedent of sorts. During Drogba’s time at Chelsea he was not ever one who took coming second best as starting striker in stride. Why would he? All managers will tell you any player worth their salt would not take a demotion to the bench in stride.

It was during André Villas-Boas ill-fated short reign back in the 2011-12 season that Drogba was at his provoking best. Reports at the time suggested Drogba, who had his playing time significantly diminished in Villas-Boas’ preferred rotational system, had a role in Abramovich firing Villas-Boas less than nine months after hiring him.

As described in Drogba’s autobiography, the ironically entitled Commitment, it was far more complicated than that. Drogba, like other senior players, felt somewhat disrespected with how the very inexperienced Villas-Boas’ refused to listen to their advice. That and the Chelsea manager changing his mind at critical moments led to his ultimate downfall.

The rest is history as they say. Under interim manager Roberto Di Matteo, Drogba was restored to a far more prominent role in Chelsea’s new setup. Then, against insurmountable odds, including coming back from the 3-1 deficit in the first leg of the Champions League Round of 16 encounter with Napoli, on the back of key goals from Drogba Chelsea claimed its very first European crown.

Not content with the scoring the winner against Barcelona in the first leg of the semi-final — for an encore in the final, it was Drogba’s headed equalizer very late on which took the final to extra time. Drogba then potted the winner during one of the most dramatic penalty shootouts ever to occur in European club football history.

I’m not for one moment suggesting the Impact will now go on and lift MLS Cup come Dec. 10, but you can be guaranteed that whomever has to face a club will wish they had drawn another opponent.

Throughout the course of their 20-plus season history, the Impact has been at their ruthless best following a crisis.

As they say, it’s not what happens that counts; it’s only your response to what happens that counts.

Montreal’s regular season ends in New England on Sunday, with kickoff at 4 p.m. TSN690’s wall-to-wall coverage kicks off at 2 p.m.