![](\"http:\/\/arewa.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/EPL-How-Mourinho-saved-my-career-in-Chelsea-Didier-Drogba.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe 40-year-old said that his Blues career could have been over before it had even got started, but Mourinho saved it by telling him that \u201cI would go to war with you\u201d.<\/p>\n
Drogba, who announced his retirement on Wednesday night, joined Chelsea from Marseille back in 2004.<\/p>\n
He scored 164 goals in 381 games for Chelsea and won four Premier League titles, FA cup and the 2012 Champions League.<\/p>\n
Drogba spent the last 18 months of his career with the US club, Phoenix Rising, which he was a co-owner.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only time I doubted myself was the time I moved from Marseille to Chelsea,\u201d Drogba told The Sun.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo and a half years earlier I was a sub in the French second division.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then, boom, suddenly I was at a club who became one of the biggest in the world. A new country, new culture\u2026and I was like \u2018hmmm, is not all too fast for me? Can I make it here? Is it too much?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a bit scared to fail and after my first difficult year at Chelsea I spoke to Jose Mourinho and told him \u2018I\u2019m not happy here. Maybe this is not for me and I need to leave.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he was saying \u2018no, you have to stay. I will help you.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything had been so comfortable for me in France and after that first season in England I was looking for that comfort zone again, which meant going back to Marseille and being the only striker.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then I heard the manager saying something really interesting to all the players.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said \u2018if you want to be the only king then go back to the team where you were playing before and score 100 goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut here at Chelsea there are 22 kings, so you have to accept that and work together. Or you go\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when I understood that Chelsea were giving me the challenge to go beyond what I had already done.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when I knew I needed to improve and it\u2019s why I became the player I was.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a special relationship with Mourinho and it really boosted my confidence when he would tell me \u2018I would go to war with you\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing from the guy who had won the Champions League and was at the top of the English game really meant a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea legend, Didier Drogba has disclosed that the conversation he had with Manchester United manager, Jose Mourinho, during their time at Stamford Bridge helped to save his career at the West London club. The 40-year-old said that his Blues career could have been over before it had even got started, but Mourinho saved it by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[1397,8079,7644],"class_list":["post-63574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-chelsea","tag-didier-drogba","tag-jose-mourinho"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}