Didier Drogba is in All-Star form. So is Ignacio Piatti.
Drogba registered his second career MLS hat-trick in his final game before Thursday’s AT&T MLS All-Star Game to lift the Montreal Impact to a 5-1 rout of the Philadelphia Union on Saturday night at Stade Saputo.
Piatti, a fellow All-Star, assisted on two of Drogba's goals and scored one of his own for the Impact, who snapped a three-game winless streak to pull within one point of the second-place Union in the Eastern Conference standings.
Ambroise Oyongo added a pair of assists and Matteo Mancosu capped the scoring barrage with a goal in stoppage time to open his MLS account.
Chris Pontius scored his team-leading eighth goal of the season for the Union with Walter Restrepo registering his first career MLS assist on the play.
Box Score
- 19’ — MTL — Didier Drogba (Ambroise Oyongo, Ignacio Piatti)
- 42’ — MTL — Didier Drogba
- 52’ — MTL — Didier Drogba (Ignacio Piatti)
- 72’ — PHI — Chris Pontius (Walter Restrepo, Fabian Herbers)
- 86' — MTL — Ignacio Piatti (Ambroise Oyongo)
- 90'+1' — MTL — Matteo Mancosu (Patrice Bernier)
- Full box score
- Stats
- Watch highlights
Three Things
1. THE DIDIER DROGBA SHOW: The Union had gotten a taste of what Drogba could do, playing opposite him in his MLS debut last season and allowing him to score earlier this season. But that was nothing compared to the show Drogba put on Saturday as the former Chelsea star defied his age with three goals in the first 52 minutes. The 38-year-old striker positioned himself perfectly to take advantage of great buildups, rebounds or poor Philly defending. Not only that, he made some nifty dribbling moves, sprayed a few clever passes around the field and even cleared the ball out of his team’s own box with a bicycle kick. Not a bad night for Drogba, who needed only 23 games to register his first two MLS hat-tricks.
2. HEY NOW, YOU'RE AN ALL-STAR: On any other night, Piatti probably probably would have stolen most of the headlines. The Argentine midfielder was also at his best Saturday, pulling off a great backheel pass to help set up the game’s first goal and slicing through Philly's defense with a through ball to help Drogba complete his hat-trick. He also scored his 12th goal of the season to pull within one of David Villa for the Golden Boot lead. Hopefully for MLS, the two can ride that wave of confidence as they now head to San Jose for the All-Star game, joining Philly’s Andre Blake and Keegan Rosenberry — two players who would rather forget this game.
3. PHILLY'S ROAD WOES CONTINUE: This is a week the entire Union team will want to forget. Four days after exiting the US Open Cup with a shootout loss in New England, the Union traveled to Montreal and promptly suffered their worst defeat of the season. For all their success this year, the Union have struggled on the road, where their only win came in the second week of the season. But this is the only game in which they haven’t been competitive. Whether that’s a symptom of their grueling schedule — they’ve played 11 games in 39 days — or just running into a hot team, head coach Jim Curtin said he plans to simply “tear up the tape” and move on.
They Said It
“We’ve been a group that’s been together and been a team all year and that’s why we’ve had some success. Tonight we were beat by stars. Drogba and Piatti were unstoppable tonight.”
— Jim Curtin, Philadelphia Union head coach
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