OM: Drogba’s revelation, 20 years later

Finalist in the UEFA Cup in 2004, OM made their supporters dream that season despite an average championship finishing in seventh place. That year, a certain Didier Drogba lit up Ligue 1 and the performances of the Olympians. Author of 32 goals in 55 matches in all competitions, the defector from Guingamp will not stay more than a year in Marseille, however, pushed towards the exit by managers only too happy to pocket the nearly 40 million euros offered by Chelsea .

At the time, it was Pape Diouf, then agent, who informed the Ivorian international of the deal concluded between OM and the Blues. Didier Drogba, however, refuses to leave. “ Everything accelerates, there is the press conference and the president at the time, Boucher, who tells me that with the transfer money, they will be able to buy several players and that the team will no longer be dependent on Mehe says today in an interview with streamer Zack Nani. And he said to me: “Will the performance you did this year, will you do next year? » It stung my ego. I said to myself: “Ah, they think that what I did there was a coincidence”. The 32 goals I scored are me, my intelligence, my abilities, my technique, everything you want, except chance. This upset me and so I said to myself: “I agree to go to Chelsea”. »

An XXL but disappointing recruitment

The rest, we know it. Didier Drogba will be in the spotlight for the Blues for eight years, scoring 157 goals in 341 matches. OM will indeed recruit in abundance that summer: Benoît Pedretti, Péguy Luyindula, Habib Bamogo, Fabrice Fiorèse, Eduardo Costa, Bixente Lizarazu, Bruno Cheyrou and Frédéric Déhu… To finish fifth in a season without a European Cup and wipe eliminations in the first rounds of the Coupe de France and the Coupe de la Ligue. Even today, the story between Marseille and Drogba has a taste of unfinished business. A bit like that of Alexis Sanchez with these same Phocaeans.