His growing age and declining form were highlighted at the 2013 Afcon in South Africa as well as
the 2014 World Cup, forcing the Ivorian football federation to choose to live without their onetime
indispensable captain and marksman.
He saw it coming and quickly announced his retirement from international duties in August 2014,
citing loss of trust from local officials as a major reason.
Ivory Coast employed a new coach Herve Renard, who attempted to persuade Drogba to return to
the outfit but his efforts hit the rock. It was then fully clear that Drogba’s page in the country’s
football had definitely turned.
Holding the team’s all-time top scorer record with 65 goals, a number of pundits and fans had
believed there would be no Ivory Coast without Drogba, and that the team would not achieve
anything good unless he was humbly beseeched to make a return.
That stance would have held water if the Elephants had failed at the 2015 Africa Cup of Nation in
Equatorial Guinea, which Drogba did not participate in. But Ivory Coast won the tournament to
record their second continental title, one which had eluded a Drogba-led-and-inspired golden
generation of footballers for more than a decade.
Drogba himself shared in the warmth and celebrations by publicly congratulating the team but his
name will unfortunately not figure on the roster of the true heroes and true achievers of the nation.
Although his popularity and likeability in Ivory Coast still surpasses that of Manchester City’s Yaya
Toure, who captained the team to their 2015 success, Drogba no longer matters to many in the
country, mostly the younger generation, who are yearning for more titles and not words to console
good losers.
Drogba will continue to dominate street gossips for along time to come in his country, but serious
football-loving minds will begin to lend their ears less and less as the years pass by.