DIDIER DROGBA sat down in a Chelsea hotel Wednesday to explain why, at the age of 40, the time was right to announce his retirement.

He discussed a career that started and finished late, taking in eight clubs, seven different countries, 15 winners’ medals and was touched by a piece of divine intervention during Chelsea’s 2012 European conquest.

The late equalizer and winning penalty against Bayern Munich in the final of the Champions League, which proved to be the last kick of his first eight-year spell at Chelsea, in many ways characterizes the fairy-tale nature of Drogba’s story.

But it is God who Drogba credits for the moment that will live with him forever, saying: “I had some conversations with God on the pitch and that night I challenged Him and said ‘OK, if you really exist, now show me.’

“So, when I scored and I ran to the corner flag, and I was looking to the sky, I was lost, I was saying ‘he does really exist.’”

Drogba’s determination to achieve his dreams was first tested as a 16-year-old, five years before he signed his first professional contract, when his father, Albert, stopped him from playing soccer to concentrate on his studies. “He stopped me for a year. But I’m a dreamer. No matter what you say to me, if I have an ambition to do something, I will do anything to get there and that’s what I did.”

It still took until Drogba was 22 and had forced his way into the first team of Ligue 2 club Le Mans that Albert changed his mind over his son’s career.

But the real turnaround came during a three-year period in which Drogba earned a move to Marseille from Guingamp and then, in 2004, joined Chelsea, where he overcame his initial fear of failure.

Despite scoring 16 goals and helping Chelsea to their first top-flight title in 50 years during his first season at Stamford Bridge, Drogba had to be talked out of returning to Marseille by former manager Jose Mourinho.

“Then I heard Mourinho say something really interesting to the whole team. He was saying ‘You know what, if you want to be the only king then go back to the team that you were playing for, scoring 100 goals or so. Go back there. But here, there’s 22 kings. So. you accept it, work together or you go. Go back to where you came from and be the only king where everybody is behind you.’

“Suddenly I knew I needed to improve and that’s what really challenged me, and it’s why I became the player that I was.”

Drogba added another two trophies to the 10 he won during his first eight years at Chelsea, when he returned for a season in 2014. He retired from international soccer four years ago as the all-time top scorer and former captain of Cote d’Ivoire.

Having finished his playing career at Phoenix Rising, with the club reaching their first playoffs by winning the American Western Conference, Drogba has not yet decided where the next stage of his life will take him.

He will base himself in London and consider whether to move into management while continuing work with his Foundation that has opened its first school and launched a mobile clinic this year in Cote d’Ivoire.

(SD-Agencies)