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Comment by adharmad | Hacker News Reader

One of the most dramatic stories has to be him causing both sides in the Nigerian civil war to have a cease fire to watch him play.

Part of it might be the universal appeal of football, but it is undeniable that his legend preceded him.

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while this story is a legend that most likely isn't true (there was a brief pause of the war for the length of the game (120 minutes max), and there was an actual ceasefire two weeks later unrelated to the match), this is actually true for Drogba.His appeal to his fellow citizens literally stopped the civil war. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/52072592

Drogba's minute long appeal to stop the civil war and conduct elections made the warring factions to put down their weapons and come to negotiation table.

Yes, a big coincidence that the war happened to pause for the length of the game and that nobody questions the correlation of both events. Great respect for Drogba, but these two are not really exclusive events (also, not a competition).

the point was that the anecdote about pele just wasn't correct. Yes, there was a brief pause because of pele/santos for the length of the match (maybe even for the whole day), but the actual cease fire was 2 weeks later unrelated to the match. We don't have to invent stories to honor his legacy. His achievements speaks for himself, and was widely considered the GOAT up until Messi.

It's a beautiful story. Here's a video of the speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAW7DF1Ufek

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