I’ve been in the Ivory Coast for a while now, and it’s good to be back home. I’m not playing, not coaching, and I’m done with football – the retired life is amazing. I don’t even follow football like I used to. I’ve got two boys, one who is three and the other is two, and they have a lot of energy!

I cannot tell if they are going to be footballers. They are both so young, and they never saw me play so it’s not like they want to do it because of that. If you have kids when you’re playing, they grow up going to the stadium, they have jerseys, they see you play. They have the feeling of football.

I have shown them the medals I won at Chelsea – many, many medals! – and the other day I was looking at the 2012 Champions League album with one of my kids and every time he saw my picture he was saying, “This is Daddy!” It’s really nice.

I’ve got lots of stories to tell them about what was the best time of my career, in every aspect. The dressing-room life, all the amazing people I played with and the amazing people that worked with the club. I played for many clubs and had many good times, but my time at Chelsea was one of the greatest.

I joined in 2006 and I remember how it all started. [Andre] Villas-Boas was the one who came to watch me when I was at Feyenoord, in Rotterdam. He talked to Jose about me and Jose came to watch me in the game before the end of the season. He had the hat on, sunglasses – incognito, you know, hiding! I scored two goals and made two assists, and he decided to take me. It was just before the World Cup in Germany and he invited me to London, with my agent, where we discussed my future at Chelsea. That’s how everything went down.

There was only one issue. To get the work permit, you either had to be European or play for your national team, and at that time I could play at international level for either Holland or Ivory Coast. But I didn’t play for a national team because I had the two invitations to decide about, and Chelsea had to prove that the reason I didn’t play for a national team is because I still had to make the choice.

Luckily, you could get a work permit through something they called ‘special talent’. That’s how I got mine, and then I could sign for Chelsea.

People ask if Didier Drogba was one of the big reasons I joined, and obviously he was a big legend for the Ivory Coast, but I’d never met him at that time. Jose was the main one because he gave me all the aspects of my game, what he expected from me, and he always promised me one thing. He said, “With me, you’re always going to play. Either you’ll play one minute, or 90 minutes, or 30 minutes, but there’s no way I’m going to leave you out of the squad.”

Jose kept his word. From 2006 to when he left Chelsea in 2007, I was always involved. That’s the speciality of Jose, he knows how to touch players and to be honest with them.

If you deserve it, he’ll give you the opportunity. When you don’t deserve it, he’ll also let you know! I was only 20 when I signed. There’s a picture of me from that day, and my tie… I was actually debating whether or not to wear the tie, but I did it at the last minute and the knot was so fat! But that was the age I was, I didn’t know how to handle myself. I learned everything here.

Sometimes, I don’t think people realise how young I was when I came to Chelsea, and how experienced that team was. I signed the same summer as Shevchenko, Ballon d’Or winner; Ballack, top German captain. They had Didier, the Ivory Coast captain. Frank Lampard and John Terry. Ashley Cole came soon after. And there are lots more I can name. Those were the players in the dressing room I was going into.

I mentioned before how I didn’t know Didier at the time, but he was playing with my big brother in the national team and straight away he took me under his wing, like his little brother. It made everything so much easier.

It was a big challenge and people thought I was never going to play one game at Chelsea and I would be loaned, like they did with many young players and they never played in the first team. But I came here at 20, scored something like 10 goals in my first season… so I think it wasn’t that bad.

Before the start of that season, we went to LA and I took a camera with me, to capture the memories of my first training camp, meeting lots of celebrities too. Unfortunately, somebody stole my camera later on, but guess what? All the memories are still inside my head and that’s the most important thing.