Coming up against Drogba has been a sort of rite of passage for new centrebacks in the Premiership for the last few years. It is almost guaranteed to be unpleasant for them. His sheer physique tends to tempt managers in to lining up their biggest, hardest, most beetle-browed brute of a defender against him, but he's not a one-trick pony - quite capable of beating you with pace and skill, he regularly turns such thick-necked barbarians inside out. Equally, if your reaction is to match him with your cultured, ball-playing centre-half, he will generally beat him to within an inch of his life in the air. Add that to his utter lack of scruples when it comes to throwing himself to the floor if anyone in the eighth row sneezes, and you have the makings of a right sod to play against.
The question is not whether a wide-eyed new centreback's first Drogging will end badly. It almost certainly will - in his two League-winning seasons he brutalised dozens of them. I remember Matty Upson took a particularly bad beating; even the usually composed Rio Ferdinand looked shaken after an encounter with the Ivorian. The question is how you respond to it.
Generally it's one of two ways. It can, without doubt, be the breaking of a man. Philippe Senderos was being hailed as the new Tony Adams - a tough, uncompromising, talented young centre-half. However, at the beginning of the 05-06 season Arsenal took on Chelsea in the Community Shield (I should note, for the record, that a shudder of distaste runs down my spine every time I write that. It's the God-damn Charity Shield, for pity's sake. It's not - quite - as bad as the Coca-Cola Championship/League One debacle, but it is still a sad and entirely unnecessary abuse of the language. But I digress). Naturally, the callow youth learned a savage lesson at the older man's hands. I may have imagined it, but I swore I could see him shaking afterwards.
Depending on your attitude, you might think that the fact Senderos had a return match two weeks later in the league might be a stroke of luck. If you fall, you get back on the horse, after all. But it didn't turn out that way - Senderos took another cruel beating. Now, nearly two years later, Senderos is nowhere. Arsenal went out and bought Gallas, and even Johan Djourou, currently on loan at Birmingham, is thought of more highly in the club's ranks. I'm not necessarily suggesting that the Drogging caused the collapse in stature - it was clear, however, that he failed a test, and he's not been the player he was since.
It is instructive to examine how our very own young Danny Agger reacted to his Drogging. They had met before, but he first felt the full blast of the furnace in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final last season. He was specifically at fault for the goal - set up by Drogba for Joe Cole to slide home - but throughout the game he had looked like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights.
Of course, like Senderos, he had a second opportunity to face his nemesis in the second leg a fortnight later. If this was to follow the same course as the Arsenal man's cautionary tale, we could expect him next to show up three years later playing in the reserves with a lifetime's anguish etched on his face.
Mercifully for the Dane, he stepped up to the plate in spectacular style. Not only was Drogba kept quiet all game - despite trying his best to unsettle him with his usual mix of direct physicality and unabashed diving - but the youngster slammed home a beautiful goal from the edge of the box to equalise the tie.
Unfortunately, neither Drogba nor Agger will actually be playing on Wednesday, which I am forced to admit rather lessens the point of me writing this article. However, it is worth noting now that, while several key players have been missing in recent weeks - including the peerless Xabi Alonso - a lot of commentators feel that it is Agger's absence that has really cost Liverpool. Big Sami has, it is to be admitted, had something of a renaissance recently - and the man has been such a tireless servant of the Reds for so long that it pains me to say anything even remotely critical of him - but the balance, pace, poise and calm that young Daniel brings to the centre of defence is utterly crucial. I honestly doubt that we would have gone in to the Champions League game against Marseille needing a win if he'd been around in the earlier group matches.
Of course, it is overstating the case that that Agger's experience was the sole factor in the making of him, just as I don't want to say Senderos' was his breaking. But it strikes me that a trial by fire like that forces a player to dig deep into his mental reserves. It is pleasing to note that in this tale of two young centre-halves subjected to one of football's least enjoyable experiences, it was Liverpool's Daniel Agger who looked within himself and liked what he saw. As they say, Drog bites man, that's not news - it's man bites Drog that people are interested in. Fair play to the lad, Agger bit back.