Yaya Toure - Player of the Week

Yaya Toure lifts City into second

Manchester City gave their best performance of the season at Southampton last weekend. City won 3-0 and jumped ahead of The Saints in the Premier League table as they try to chase Chelsea at the top, who are now only 6 points ahead of them. It was a fantastic performance by City, who went ahead in the second half through a trademark Yaya Toure goal from just outside the penalty area. Toure won the midfield battle against Kenyan, Victor Wanyama and despite being reduced to 10 men after a red card for Eliaquim Mangala, City continued to go forward and scored another 2 goals. After 80 minutes, Frank Lampard scored his 3rd Premier League goal for City and in the final few minutes Gael Clichy scored his first ever goal for City after over 100 games for the team! With City playing well and players like Sergio Aguero and Toure playing at their best maybe we will see the gap at the top starting to close.

What do we know about Yaya Toure?

Yaya Toure was born in Bouaké in the Ivory Coast, in May 1983. When he was 13 years old he moved to Abidjan (the biggest city in Ivory Coast) to play for ASEC Mimosas and their famous academy. This academy has produced many famous Ivorian players including his brother Kolo (Liverpool), Gervinho (Roma and ex-Arsenal) and Solomon Kalou (Lille and ex-Chelsea). There are also a number of Ivorians currently playing in the Premier League:

• Didier Drogba (Chelsea)
• Wilfried Bony (Swansea City)
• Chieck Tiote (Newcastle Utd)
• Guy Demel (West Ham Utd)
• Yannick Sagbo (Hull City)

Where has Yaya Toure played?

Like many of his Ivorian colleagues, Toure left the Ivory Coast to play in Europe. So far in his career Toure has played for six different clubs, in six different countries. They are:

During his travels, Toure has won league titles in four different countries, (Ivory Coast, Greece, Spain and England). He also won the Champions League with Barcelona in 2009 where he played as a centre back in the 2-0 victory against Manchester United. Because the competition at Barcelona was very strong he moved to Manchester City in the summer of 2010.

Has he had success playing for the Ivory Coast?

Toure has played over 80 times for Ivory Coast and has scored 16 international goals (December 2014). He made his debut against Egypt, in June 2004. Toure has played for 'The Elephants' in five Africa Cup of Nations tournaments and finished as runners-up in 2006 and 2012. Toure was named in the team of the tournament in 2008 and 2012.

Toure played all three games in the 2006 World Cup, in Germany, for Ivory Coast, which was their first ever World Cup. Toure also played in all three games that Ivory Coast played in the World Cup in 2010, in South Africa. Ivory Coast had to play in diffcult groups on both occasions (Argentina and Netherlands 2006 and Brazil and Portugal 2010). At Brazil 2014, Toure played all 3 games once more, but unfortunately Ivory Coast were eliminated at the group stage for a third successive World Cup.

Did Toure play for Arsenal?

In 2003, Yaya had a trial at Arsenal. His brother, Kolo, was playing for Arsenal at the time. During the trial Yaya impressed the manager, Arsene Wenger, so much that Wenger tried to sign him. Because of problems with work permits Yaya was unable to sign for Arsenal, and play with his brother, so he signed for Metalurh Donetsk in the Ukraine. When Yaya signed for Manchester City in 2010 he finally joined Kolo, who had moved from Arsenal to Manchester City the year before. Kolo is now at Liverpool.

What do we know about Toure outside of football?

Yaya Toure is a practising Muslim. He once said 'no' to a bottle of champagne that was presented to him for a man of the match performance against Newcastle. Toure is also a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Environment Programme. His job includes speaking about the importance of protecting elephants in all of Africa and to stop poaching of the animals. Toure has said, "Ivory Coast's national team is named The Elephants after these magnificent amimals, yet in my country, there are less than 800 elephants left."

Toure has also spoken a number of times about stopping racism in football. Toure has said that we need to, "show a red card to racism".

You can follow Yaya Toure on twitter. He posts using the name @YayaToure.

What did you understand?

Match the numbers to the statement.

Match up

Activity 1:  In this activity, think about what you read. Can you match the numbers to the correct statement?

Did you know...........?

• In 2011, Toure scored the only goals in both the FA Cup Final and semi-final.
• In 2009, Toure was part of the Barcelona team that won 6 major trophies in one calendar year.
• Yaya Toure is the current African and BBC African Footballer of the Year. 
• Between 1941 and 1949 Manchester City shared their stadium with another team - Manchester United!
• Shiek Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan is the owner of Manchester City and the brother of the current ruler of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.