Didier Drogba walked onto the pitch for the Montreal Impact, and six minutes later he found the equalizer in his team's 2-1 win at the Chicago Fire. It wasn't a particularly pretty or impressive three points, but all road wins are beautiful in their own way. The Impact owe this one mostly to their superstar.
You can see the goal above and, in this instance, "beautiful in its own way" is quite clearly referring to the finish. That back-post backheel is the type of instinctive killshot that the greats make look so easy.
It's the lead-up that I want to focus on, however, because it's in the lead-up where the duality of "Drogba the Superstar" and "Drogba the Worker" meet. Usually when we talk about Designated Players in the 35-and-older demographic, the tacit implication is that we're talking about a luxury player -- the type of guy whose strengths you build around, but whose weaknesses you have to figure out how to mask. For most, that weakness is work rate.
And yet there's Didi, recognizing the risky back-pass, taking advantage of the naivete of rookie defender Jonathan Campbell (put a body on him, son -- refs won't call that) and closing down 'keeper Matt Lampson, forcing the wayward distribution that turns into a goal just seconds later. Without that fundamental commitment and recognition of opportunity from Drogba the Worker, there is no goal from Drogba the Superstar.
Half a country away, Jozy Altidore made his second straight start for Toronto FC, and picked up his second assist after just 58 seconds in TFC's 1-0 win at D.C. United. It was as smart a play as you'll see this weekend -- rather than pick his head up and choose his pass, he simply whipped a left-footed cross low and hard across the six-yard box, knowing that there would be someone making a back-post run.
This wasn't individual creativity on Jozy's part, or on the part of Marky Delgado (who indeed was making the back-post run), or on the part of Sebastian Giovinco; it was a fundamental understanding of the shape of the game in that moment, where his teammates would be and where his opponents would be. Take too long to hit that cross and the defense gets set, which means they can attack it. Play it first time, and you have a much better chance at ending up with a goal.
Altidore's best work, however, came in moments like these:
The Reds are far from a well-oiled machine at this point -- they were out-shot, out-possessed and, at times, out-played -- but they're also on an epic, two-month road trip, and are still working out their best approach from the run of play. Meaningful possession hasn't been easy to come by.
That started to change with Altidore operating as a safety valve. The sequence above didn't quite come off, but you can see how his movement and ability to complete simple passes dragged the defense out of the central zone and opened up the space underneath for the rest of TFC's attackers.
When we talk about the importance of hold-up play, generally we're conjuring images of Drogba, Altidore or the like beasting in a heavyweight bout directly against a giant central defender. In this case (and many others), hold-up play is based upon changing the geometry of the game, and giving the midfield and fullbacks more angles to drive possession forward.
It's a fundamental role for the No. 9, and one that Altidore's had to improve at over the course of his career. That improvement prior to this season has usually looked both sporadic and incremental. So far, however, 2016 has proved to be two giant steps forward for him and his team.
I'm not expecting that to be followed by two steps back. The fundamental framework is finally proving to be too solid for those kinds of doubts.
