{"id":34057,"date":"2013-02-16T15:18:29","date_gmt":"2013-02-16T13:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=34057"},"modified":"2013-02-16T15:18:29","modified_gmt":"2013-02-16T13:18:29","slug":"legendary-didier-drogba-scoring-first-match-and-winked-champions-league-world-football-news-34057","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/legendary-didier-drogba-scoring-first-match-and-winked-champions-league-world-football-news-34057\/","title":{"rendered":"Legendary Didier Drogba scoring first match and winked Champions League \/ World Football News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

Didier Drogba reminded Chelsea what they are missing as he marked his return to European football with a debut goal for Galatasaray just five minutes after coming off the bench.<\/span><\/h1>\n

Legendary Ivorian forward Didier Drogba made a sensational start to his Galatasaray career tonight, blowing open a cagey 0-0 game by scoring within four minutes of taking the field before setting up a second strike in the Lions\u2019 2-1 victory over Akhisar Belediyespor.<\/p>\n

In trademark style, Drogba rose highest at the far post and sent a deadly accurate header back across goal to give Galatasaray the lead with 68 minutes played.<\/span><\/p>\n

Drogba, the club\u2019s second massive transfer of the January window following Dutchman Wesley Sneijder, took the field in the 63rd minute, opening his account in spectacular fashion just four minutes later. Latching on to the end of a pinpoint cross from Galatasaray\u2019s Burak Y\u0131lmaz, Drogba out-jumped Akhisar\u2019s defense to send a header into the far corner of the net.<\/p>\n

Drogba\u2019s inclusion injected vibrancy into Galatasaray\u2019s attack, which had hitherto struggled to break down the Aegean side. Akhisar remains at the opposite end of the table from the Lions, the Spor Toto Super League leader with 43 points. Akhisar remained on 20 points, four points from safety.<\/p>\n

Three minutes after scoring his first for Galatasaray, Drogba turned provider, poking free a ball for Burak, the joint top scorer in the Champions League group stage, to score his 12th league goal of the season for the visitors.<\/p>\n

Akhisar\u2019s Sertan Vardar pulled a consolation goal back for the hosts in the 85th minute, but no one was able to overshadow Drogba\u2019s entry onto the Turkish stage.<\/p>\n

Sneijder, making his second start for Galatasaray since joining from Inter Milan, nearly scored his first for his new club in the 39th minute, but his lob was parried over the bar by Akhisar keeper O\u011fuz Da\u011flaro\u011flu. The Dutchman was replaced by Drogba\u2019s countryman, Emmanuel Eboue, in the 79th minute.<\/p>\n

The match was Galatasaray\u2019s final tune-up before Feb. 20\u2019s Champions League match against Germany\u2019s Schalke 04 at T\u00fcrk Telekom Arena in Istanbul.<\/p>\n

Drogba spent eight years at Chelsea and left Stamford Bridge as a club legend last summer having won the Champions League and FA Cup in his final season.<\/div>\n
\n

Radamel Falcao\u2019s decision to stay in Madrid, for now, and Fernando Torres\u2019 continuing struggles will no doubt leave some Chelsea fans wishing Drogba was still wearing blue.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Didier Drogba reminded Chelsea what they are missing as he marked his return to European football with a debut goal for Galatasaray just five minutes after coming off the bench.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":702,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,80,63,17,135,1,118,127,171,173,1633,14],"tags":[46030,401,6715,46033,46028,23472,46035,46032,46036,46029,46031,46034],"class_list":["post-34057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-europe","category-football","category-general","category-hot","category-sport","category-turkey","category-turkey-headlines","category-turkey-sport","category-world","tag-champions-league-drogba","tag-chelsea","tag-didier-drogba","tag-didier-drogba-debut-goal","tag-didier-drogba-galatasaray","tag-didier-drogba-goal","tag-drogba-goal-first-match","tag-drogba-return-european-football","tag-drogba-winked-champions-league","tag-first-match-drogba-scored","tag-galatasaray-drogba","tag-legendary-drogba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}