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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;LONDON (Reuters) -- Didier Drogba brought down the curtain on a trophy-laden career at Chelsea on Tuesday when he announced he would be leaving the club after eight years in West London.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Ivory Coast striker will leave when his contract expires at the end of June and is now odds-on to follow his former team mate Nicolas Anelka to China.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He leaves the club on a high after a starring role in Saturday's Champions League final when he scored an emphatic late headed equaliser before coolly slotting home the decisive penalty in the shootout.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It capped a glittering period at Stamford Bridge where he also won three Premier League titles, four FA Cups and two League Cups.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"I wanted to put an end to all the speculation and confirm that I am leaving Chelsea,\" Drogba said on the club website (www.chelseafc.com).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"It has been a very difficult decision for me to make and I am very proud of what we have achieved but the time is right for a new challenge for me.\"&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Drogba, 34, joined Chelsea from Olympique Marseille in 2004. His menacing physicality was ideally suited to the fast-paced hubbub of the Premier League.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He found goals easy to get, scoring 157 times in 341 appearances, making him the club's fourth all-time leading scorer, while his 34 European goals are a Chelsea record.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He won the Premier League Golden Boot twice, most recently in 2010, but his Chelsea career appeared to be coming to an end when the club signed Fernando Torres for a British record fee of 50 million pounds ($79.01 million) in January 2011.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Former manager Andre Villas-Boas tried unsuccessfully to re-invigorate his team by phasing out Chelsea's older players, with Drogba and midfielder Frank Lampard his principal victims.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Ivorian striker frequently found himself sidelined to accommodate a below-par Torres who struggled to make an impact following his big-money move.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The departure of Villas-Boas, however, led to a renaissance for Chelsea's 'old guard' who helped to propel the club to a golden finale in which Drogba featured prominently.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;On top of his Champions League heroics, he also scored in the FA Cup final as Chelsea beat Liverpool at Wembley.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"Didier is undoubtedly a Chelsea legend and will always be part of the Chelsea family,\" Chelsea chief executive Ron Gourlay said.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"He is certainly leaving on a high after Saturday night but he feels the time is right for a new challenge.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"We have known for some time that this outcome was likely but Didier and the club only made a final decision on that in the last couple of days, because for obvious reasons neither Didier nor the club wanted to distract focus away from the Champions League final.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"The talks were amicable all the way through and we wish him all the best for the future. He is welcome back to Stamford Bridge at any time - either as a player or as a guest of ours.\"&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Drogba has been linked with a move to Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua where he would join up with former Chelsea team mate Anelka who left Stamford Bridge in January.&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/soccer/2012/05/22/drogba-chelsea>