Didier Drogba’s eye was drawn towards the chocolate Nutella gnocchi as he glanced at the menu and sat down in a Chelsea hotel to explain why, aged 40, the time was right to announce his playing retirement.

“I could have had two of these while I was playing,” said Drogba with a smile. “You can treat yourself when you are training, but now I’m going to have to be careful.”

Drogba instead opted for a coffee, as he spent almost an hour discussing a career that started and finished late, taking in eight clubs, seven different countries, 15 winners’ medals and was touched by a piece of divine intervention during Chelsea’s 2012 European conquest.

The late equaliser and winning penalty against Bayern Munich in the final of the Champions League, which proved to be the last kick of his first eight-year spell at Chelsea, in many ways characterises the fairy-tale nature of Drogba’s story.

But it is God who Drogba credits for the moment that will live with him for ever, saying: “I had some conversations with God on the pitch and that night I challenged Him and said ‘OK, if you really exist, now show me’.

“That’s how that goal came. On that last corner, I was telling God ‘now I want to see that you really exist’. So, when I scored and I ran to the corner flag, and I was looking to the sky, I was lost, I was saying ‘he does really exist’.