LONDON – Didier Drogba can make his exit after eight years at Chelsea knowing it is mission accomplished.The Ivorian centre forward, who scored the winning penalty as Chelsea beat Bayern Munich to win the European Cup, announced on Tuesday that he was leaving Stamford Bridge.He was signed for £24m in 2004 from French club Marseille as one of Roman Abramovich’s key initial signings after the Russian billionaire took over the London outfit - and Drogba can now sign off having delivered the one trophy Abramovich craved more than any other.If anyone deserved a Champions League winner’s medal it was the powerful striker - he had previously lost in one final, three semi-finals, one quarter-final and twice in the last 16.But, on Saturday, the Ivory Coast striker scored the decisive spot-kick in the penalty shoot-out at the Allianz Arena to erase all those previous scars.The red card against Manchester United in the 2008 final, the tirade into the television camera after a controversial defeat by Barcelona, a penalty shoot-out loss to Liverpool – Drogba’s pain on the Champions League stage has been hard to enough to watch, let alone endure.Despite being a player who consistently delivered for Chelsea – he scored nine goals in nine finals – Europe’s top competition always looked destined to elude him.Drogba, though, maintained the faith.Accused of being an “actor” by some because of his theatrics, in Munich he put in a performance more in keeping with the power and poise which made him such a feared opponent for defenders, scoring with a bullet header to equalise against Bayern before converting the crucial penalty.The man himself put the success down to divine intervention.
