Didier Drogba scores again as Phoenix advance to USL Western Conference final

Didier Drogba, all of 40 years forever young, wants one more trophy before officially hanging up his boots. After last night, he’s now just two wins away from it.

On Friday, the team he currently co-owns, Phoenix Rising FC in the second tier of American soccer, beat Swope Park Rangers 4-2 to advance to the USL Western Conference final, where they will face either Orange County or Reno next weekend. The winner of that game will then go on to face the winner of the Eastern Conference final in the USL championship match in two weeks.

It should come as no surprise that the Big Man For The Big Occasion got his customary goal in Friday’s single-elimination match against the visitors from Kansas City. It wasn’t quite as bombastic as the effort in the previous round, when he piledrived a knuckleball free kick into the back of the net, but it sealed the deal in added-on time, ensuring that his playing career goes on for at least one more match. It was yet another clinical finish from the Rising, who scored four times despite having just 30 per cent of the ball.

(It was the sort of compact defending and clinical finishing that Chelsea once rode to the Champions League trophy ... just sayin’...)

Here’s the King holding his post-match court, setting the ultimate goal.

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