On this day: in history (1978), Didier Yves Drogba Tébily was born. He is an Ivorian retired professional footballer and former captain of the Ivory Coast national team. He is best known for his career at Chelsea, where he has scored more goals than any other foreign player.
Drogba was named as the African Footballer of the Year twice, winning the accolade in 2006 and 2009. Drogba made his professional debut aged 18 for Ligue 2 club Le Mans, and signed his first professional contract aged 21. After finishing the 2002–03 season with 17 goals in 34 appearances for Ligue 1 side Guingamp, he moved to Olympique de Marseille, where he finished as the third highest scorer in the 2003–04 season with 19 goals and helped the club reach the 2004 UEFA Cup Final.
In July 2004, Drogba moved to Premier League club Chelsea for a club record fee of £24 million, making him the most expensive Ivorian player in history. In his debut season he helped the club win their first league title in 50 years, and a year later he won another Premier League title. He was named in the FIFA World XI for 2007.
He also played in the 2012 UEFA Champions League Final, in which he scored an 88th-minute equaliser and the winning penalty in the deciding shoot-out against Bayern Munich. After spending 6 months with Shanghai Shenhua in China, and one and a half seasons with Turkish club Galatasaray where he scored the winning goal in the final of the 2013 Turkish Super Cup, Drogba returned to Chelsea in July 2014 and joined Canadian club Montreal Impact in 2015 as a Designated Player and played 41 matches over two seasons, scoring 23 goals. Drogba became a player–owner for Phoenix Rising of the United Soccer League in 2017, and retired a year later at the age of 40.
In 2007 he was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme.
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Created by Okey Obiabunmo
