With his team facing another painful defeat, Cairo Santos sweetly struck the ball in the final moments of the game. He, the 21 other players on the field and a crowd of almost 80,000 watched as his kick found its target to snatch victory.
In a moment of unbridled joy, the 33-year-old Brazilian raced across the turf, moving his arms in and out repeatedly in celebration before being immersed by team-mates.
Santos’ 51-yard field goal had secured a thrilling 24-22 away win for the Chicago Bears over bitter NFC North rivals Green Bay Packers on Sunday on the last play of their final game of the 2024 season, snapping a 10-game losing streak overall and doing so against opponents they had not beaten in 11 meetings going back to 2019.
But it was his game-winning celebration which garnered much of the attention, on social media at least. Football (soccer) fans wondered why this American football player had seemingly copied former Chelsea and Ivory Coast international striker Didier Drogba, while some NFL followers wanted to know what his moves were all about.
Over the past few days, things have become clearer.
What was Santos’ celebration?
The Bears have not fared well against most opponents this season, and had lost 10 matches in a row going into their 17th and last game of the 2024 campaign in Green Bay on Sunday. This run included a 20-19 defeat to the Packers in Chicago in November, where Santos had a potential game-winning field goal blocked in the final seconds, so the jubilation on Sunday was understandable.
The Drogba celebration can be described as tucking in your elbows just above the waist before extending the arms straight, fingers pointed out, and doing this on repeat. The Ivorian occasionally performed it while also sliding across the pitch on his knees.
Drogba celebrates scoring for Chelsea in the Premier League in 2014 (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
Drogba is a two-time African Footballer of the Year and is best known for his time at Premier League club Chelsea. Over two stints between 2004 and 2015, he scored 164 goals in 381 appearances for the west London side and won a Champions League, four Premier League titles, four FA Cups and three League Cups. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest strikers to play in the English top-flight.
Towards the end of his career, Drogba took his talents to North America. In 2015 and 2016, he was in MLS with Montreal Impact, before joining Phoenix Rising in the second-tier USL (United Soccer League), helping them become its Western Conference champions as player/part-owner before retiring in 2018. He continues to co-own the Arizona-based franchise.
Santos is not the only imitator of Drogba’s celebration in other sports, with teenage sensation Luke Littler using it during his run to the PDC World Darts Championship title last week.
Santos played soccer growing up in Brazil (John Fisher/Getty Images)
Kyle Brandt, one of the hosts on NFL Network’s Good Morning Football show and a Bears fan, posted on X: “I have never seen a human do this movement before. Ever” before following up with another post: “1 or 2 of you have mention it’s from a different sport. Thank you. I don’t watch soccer much at all. Nothing against it. I don’t know celebrations. I’m still in shock the Bears won.”
Many on social media praised the celebration. One even said it was “almost as good as the kick”.
Speaking to reporters after the match, Santos said: “I didn’t plan for any of it. I just wanted to let my emotions out and I think a lot of it was leading up all these weeks from the first time we played them and I just let it out with a soccer celebration [and] my normal celebration. Last game of the season, so I just let it out.”
“Ever since that game against Green Bay at home, I’ve had a terrible taste in my mouth,” he added, per the Bears’ official website. “I’ve tried to stay in the moment every game after that, but I had this game circled in my heart. I literally got on my knees all week and prayed that I would have a game-winning kick. It’s just surreal that it happened this way.”
But why did Santos celebrate like Drogba?
Santos is a huge Chelsea fan, and Drogba is one of the club’s biggest icons.
In an Instagram post from July 2015, the Brazilian shared photos of himself touring the club’s home stadium, Stamford Bridge. The caption reads: “It’s been a wish of mine to visit this club ever since I started playing soccer. Go Blues!”
Though Brazil hosted an NFL game for the first time at the start of this season, football/soccer is the most popular sport in Santos’ home nation, which has won a record five men’s World Cups and is the birthplace of the player regarded as the greatest in the game’s history, Pele.
Santos had grown up playing soccer in Brazil before moving to the U.S. state of Florida as a foreign exchange student at age 15.
Plenty of Brazilians have played for Chelsea over the past decade, including Thiago Silva, David Luiz, Willian, Ramires and Oscar, and they have also had a Brazilian manager in Luiz Felipe Scolari in 2008-09.
The Bears were part of the NFL London Games this season, beating the Jacksonville Jaguars 35-16 at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in October, and Santos made time to watch the football international between England and Greece at Wembley Stadium during his visit to the UK capital.
He is not the only NFL kicker with a background in the round-ball form of football.
Brandon Aubrey of the Dallas Cowboys was picked in the first round of the 2017 MLS SuperDraft by Toronto after four years playing the sport at the University of Notre Dame in the U.S., where he won a national championship, but never made a first-team appearance for them. Matt Gay (Indianapolis Colts) and Jake Bates (Detroit Lions) also played in their college days.
(Top photo: Todd Rosenberg/Getty Images)
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