Didier Drogba: MLS is tougher than Premier League
Didier Drogba has found MLS more challenging than the Premier League
In the discussion of world footballing, MLS isn’t often discussed as one of the better leagues in the world. There’s plenty of mention of Serie A, La Liga, the Bundesliaga, and of course the Premier League, but MLS is far down on that list. If you ask former Chelsea great and current Montreal Impact striker Didier Drogba, though, he’d say that North America’s biggest deserves to be placed among the other great leagues in the world in terms of difficulty.
Drogba, who signed with the Impact in July 2015, discussed his first run in MLS with Tony Jiminez of Reuters and spoke highly of the league in terms of the challenges it offers. Drogba even went as far as to say, “People think it’s easy to play there. Believe me, it’s more difficult than playing in the Premier League because of the travel.” That’s certainly far from the popular opinion.
The Ivory Coast forward elaborated, saying that the competition is leveled in MLS because the travel across the country can be so grueling. He noted that there are few away wins in MLS because “when the teams arrive they are tired.” His touting of MLS wasn’t limited to just the difficulties caused by travel, though.
Drogba also noted that there are plenty of high-caliber players in MLS right now and that the league is only going to continue to grow. He put the icing on the cake by saying that he believes that MLS will be “one of the most important and decisive leagues in the world” very soon.
It’s not particularly common that you hear players stack up MLS so favorably to the Premier League or any of the other great leagues in Europe, but it’s indicative of the change currently going on in MLS. Starting with former European greats such as David Beckham and Thierry Henry, the influx of some of the bigger names in world soccer—though most of them have been past their primes—has bolstered the reputation and competitiveness of MLS. The rise in quality of play for the United States men’s national team has contributed to this as well.
Despite Drogba’s thoughts about MLS, there’s still a ways to go before the entire footballing world puts the league in the same conversation as the Premier League and so on. However, that a player of Drogba’s caliber feels this way is a sign that MLS and American soccer are heading in the right direction.
H/T to Bleacher Report