Didier Drogba

Didier Yves Drogba Tébily (born March 11, 1978 in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire) is a footballer from Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) who currently plays for Chelsea F.C. of the English Premier League.

Early Life

Born in Abidjan on 11 March 1978, Didier Drogba spent his childhood in his native Côte d'Ivoire and his adopted country, France. ‘Tito’, as he was known to friends and family, first left the country of his birth at the age of five. He headed for Brest in Brittany, where his uncle, Michel Goba, was a professional footballer. Drogba spent three years there with his uncle, living in Brest, Angoulême and Dunkerque, before returning home.

Following a downturn in economic conditions, he returned to live with his uncle in Dunkerque, though he continued to move around France as a youngster. It was at this time that he began to play football. In 1991 his parents also travelled to France, moving to Vannes and at the age of fifteen Drogba signed for Levallois. At the time he was living with his cousin, Olivier Tebily, who now plays for Birmingham City. Drogba rose through the ranks at Levallois, playing for them in Ligue 2 aged 18.

Career

Le Mans and Guingamp

Drogba signed for Le Mans in 1998 (aged 19), who at the time were also in Ligue 2. After achieving a professional contract, he had a respectable first season, scoring seven goals. His next two seasons were dogged by injury, though his potential was clearly noted by Guingamp, who signed him in 2002, taking him up to Ligue 1 (aged 24).

Drogba spent one and a half seasons at Guingamp, scoring in his first game and repaying the manager's (Guy Lacombe) faith in him. In his only full season with the club, Drogba scored seventeen goals and helped Guingamp finish seventh, a record high for them. This led to him signing for Olympique de Marseille, one of France's biggest clubs.

Olympique de Marseille

Marseille initially struggled, with Alain Perrin, who signed Drogba from Guingamp, being soon replaced by José Anigo. Drogba was unperturbed and his performances improved, scoring 18 goals and winning the award for French player of the year. He also collected a UEFA Cup runner's up medal, Marseille losing to Valencia in the final. Again he attracted attention from bigger clubs, and at the end of the season he moved to Chelsea as the club's record signing for £24 million.

Chelsea

Signing for Chelsea in July 2004, Drogba adapted well to the FA Premier League, scoring in his third game for the club with a thunderous header against Crystal Palace. His season was interrupted when he pulled a stomach muscle against Liverpool, which kept him out of action for over two months. Despite this he enjoyed the second best goals-to-minutes ratio in the Premier League, prolific Frenchman Thierry Henry being the only player to better him in this respect. He scored 16 goals in 40 games for Chelsea in his first season, but was criticized for being inconsistent.

The season proved very successful for Chelsea as they won the Premiership and the Carling Cup, with Drogba scoring in extra time in a 3-2 final win against Liverpool at the Millennium Stadium. He played an important part in his team's run to the semi-finals of the Champions League, where he scored a brace against ex-club Marseille's arch-rivals Paris Saint-Germain and another two goals in both legs of the quarter-final against Bayern Munich.

He made an impressive start to the 2005/6 season, scoring two goals in a Community Shield win over Arsenal and putting in a man-of-the-match performance in a 4-1 win against Liverpool at Anfield, where he had a part in creating every goal.

Drogba was accused of cheating during Chelsea's 2-0 win over Manchester City, during the 2005/06 season. He appeared to control the ball with his hand, before scoring the second of his two goals. In a post match interview with the BBC, he acknowledged that he had handled the ball and seemingly admitted to cheating, saying, "Sometimes I dive, sometimes I stand," before immediately retracting his comment: "I don't dive, I play my game." Includes link to interview in RealVideo format.

Chelsea went on to win the league title with two games to play. Ultimately, Drogba finished the 2005/6 season as the top assister in the Premier League, with 11 assists according to Actim Stats.

On June 11 2006, Drogba, who had previously disclosed that he wanted to return to Marseille because he had been demonised by the English media, said that he was ready to extend his contract at Chelsea and looked forward to playing with new team-mates Michael Ballack, Andriy Shevchenko, Salomon Kalou and John Obi Mikel.

International

Drogba is a Côte d'Ivoire international and helped the team qualify for its first ever World Cup Finals, to be held in Germany in 2006. He scored nine goals in eight qualifying games - statistically one of the best records in international football. In February 2005 he was voted runner-up to Samuel Eto'o in the African Footballer of the Year awards. He has scored 24 times in 34 caps, as of June 17, 2006.

In February 2006, Drogba captained Côte d'Ivoire to their second African Cup of Nations final, scoring the only goal in their semi-final match with Nigeria and putting away the deciding spot-kick in their record-equalling 12-11 penalty shootout quarter-final win over Cameroon. However, they lost in the final to Egypt 4-2 on penalties after a 0-0 draw, with Drogba missing a penalty in the shoot-out.

In the 2006 World Cup, Côte d'Ivoire has been drawn in a "group of death" with Serbia and Montenegro, the Netherlands and Argentina. On June 10 2006, Drogba scored the first World Cup goal of his career and of his country's history in the opening game against Argentina, but his team lost 2-1. At the post-match press conference, Drogba praised his team-mates for a good overall performance (singling out Bakary Kone and Didier Zokora in particular), but said that he and his team-mates have to work at cutting out mistakes and becoming better organised. "The difference between big teams like Argentina and small teams like us," Drogba said, "is that the big teams make the small teams pay for their mistakes. When you play opponents like Argentina, when you make little mistakes, you pay."

Côte d'Ivoire were eliminated from the World Cup after their next game, a 1-2 defeat to the Netherlands, but came from 0-2 down to beat Serbia and Montenegro 3-2 in their final group game, with Drogba watching from the sidelines following suspension. Drogba was seen celebrating wildly with his Ivorian teammates in the dugout at the final whistle. He later told German telelvision that he was 'immensely proud' of his teammates, and felt that the team had done Africa proud, expecially by demonstrating resolve and refusal to accept defeat.

References

External links

Drogba's official site - available in English and French
Profile on Chelsea's official site
BBC profile
FootballDatabase profile

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