Drogba scoops Africa accolade
Drogba skippered his national side to the African Cup of Nations final
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Thursday, 01, Mar 2007 10:40
Chelsea and Ivory Coast striker Didier Drogba has been named as the African Footballer of the Year for 2006.
Drogba's triumph denied Barcelona's Samuel Eto'o a fourth successive title as the Chelsea man polled 79 votes compared to the Cameroon forward's 74 in a survey of the continent's national coaches.
The result represents a turnaround of the 2005 standings in which Eto'o won the accolade from Drogba by just two votes.
Ghana's Michael Essien, one of Drogba's team-mates at Stamford Bridge, came a distant third with 36 nominations.
The individual award caps a highly successful year for the former Marseilles player who captained the Elephants to the final of the African Cup of Nations and through a strong, if ultimately unsuccessful, group campaign at the World Cup finals in Germany.
After suggestions that he may be in for a difficult season at Chelsea with the summer addition of Ukrainian legend Andrei Shevchenko to the squad, the 28-year-old proved more than equal to the challenge and currently leads the top flight scoring charts with 17 goals.
The Premiership was also well-represented in the African team of the year in which Arsenal's defensive pair Emmanuel Eboue and Kolo Toure and Tottenham's Didier Zokora took their places alongside the Chelsea duo.