Hello, everyone! Welcome to All Football's latest column LIKE A MODEL! Here we will bring you the sexiest & hottest men in the football world. So just feast your eyes and give your points for them. The handsome footballer of this week that we choose is the 'African King' Didier Drogba.
At age five Drogba was sent to France in the care of an uncle, a professional footballer. After three years he returned home, only to go back to France after three more years in Côte d’Ivoire. At age 15 Drogba became an apprentice with second-division Levallois, outside Paris, and then in 1997–98 he moved to Le Mans FC, where in his second season he signed as a professional.
In January 2002 Drogba joined top-division Guingamp, tallying 17 goals in 34 league games. This success prompted a 2003 trade to Olympique de Marseille, where he scored 19 goals in 35 domestic matches and an additional 11 goals in European play as the club reached the 2004 Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Cup final, where it lost 2–0 to Valencia of Spain.
He moved to Marseille 18 months later - and the following year completed a reported £24m move to Chelsea, where he had the best spell of his career.
Signing for Chelsea in July 2004 for £24 million, Chelsea won EPL title, only their second English top-flight championship and their first in 50 years, and the League Cup, with Drogba scoring in extra time in a 3-2 final win against Liverpool, as well as reaching the semi-finals of the Champions League. Drogba scored 16 goals in 40 games for Chelsea in his first season.
Drogba was quick, alert, and supremely confident in his own ability, though he showed a tendency to a quick temper in matches. Even in his second season, when Chelsea’s title was successfully defended, fan appreciation was still muted. Yet by the end of the 2006–07 season, when Chelsea failed in its attempt to take a third straight league championship, Drogba had won over most of the skeptical Chelsea fans by being the league’s top scorer (with 20 goals) and by finishing the season with an overall tally of 33 goals. In addition, he was the key player in Chelsea’s winning both the Football Association (FA) Cup and Carling Cup trophies that season, as he scored the club’s only goals in the finals of those two tournaments.
Drogba helped lead Chelsea to the 2008 Champions League final, where he once again earned fan ire by slapping an opposing player and getting sent off in a match that Chelsea ultimately lost to Manchester United by one penalty kick. In 2009 he earned a measure of redemption as Chelsea won its second FA Cup with Drogba on the squad. The following year Chelsea won both the FA Cup and the Premier League title, with Drogba leading the league in goals—29 for the season.
In the 2012 Champions League final, he scored Chelsea’s lone regulation goal and the winning extra-time penalty kick to guide Chelsea past Bayern Munich and capture the team’s first European club championship.
Drogba then spent six months with Shanghai Shenhua and a year and a half with Galatasaray before returning to Chelsea.
He scored seven goals in 2014-15, winning a fourth Premier League title and a third League Cup, leaving the club as their fourth highest scorer of all time.
In 2015, he joined Major League Soccer side Montreal Impact and then became player-owner of Phoenix Rising.
He scored 65 times in 105 caps for the Ivory Coast, playing in three World Cups and being named African Footballer of the Year twice.
Do you agree with us? Post your comments and share your favourite photos of Drogba! Meanwhile, you can tell us which player you want to see the next week!