The problem with announcing your retirement as a player before your team begins the playoffs is you never know which game will be your last. And that has both Orange County’s Richard Chaplow and Phoenix Rising’s Didier Drogba heading into Saturday’s USL Western Conference final at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine wondering if it will be their final time on a soccer pitch.
Before joining the second-division USL, Chaplow, 33, and Drogba, 40, both played in the English Premier League, Chaplow with West Bromwich Albion and Southampton and Drogba famously for Chelsea, for which he scored the winning goal in the 2012 Champions League final.