[Niles Crane]

In other news, Didier Drogba has been named in TIME magazine's 100 most influential people of 2010. Which is quite an accolade.

Drogba, 32, a striker for England's Chelsea Football Club and the captain of the Côte d'Ivoire team, has shown the world what's possible when power and grace fuse on the soccer pitch. Imagine the body of an NBA star with feet as nimble as a prima ballerina's. When the World Cup kicks off in South Africa in June, he will carry the hopes of a continent as Africa's best-known soccer star. (West African fans will toast him with a beer glass called the Drogba. It's nearly twice the size of a normal mug.)

No one knows the rickety and high-spirited but often heartbreaking touring bus that is African soccer better than Drogba. At the 2006 World Cup, his homeland ravaged by civil war, he organized a statement from the Elephants, as the Ivorian national team is referred to, calling for peace. Many credit the ensuing calm for allowing reconciliation to begin. At a match last March, 22 Ivorians were killed in the crush to see their beloved heroes play. After the game, Drogba resolved to donate every dollar he earns from endorsements to a charity he set up to build new hospitals in the country.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/pa...#ixzz0mcidhlpp

http://www.time.com/time/specials/pa...984685,00.html