Yaya Toure: The Famous Midfielder from Ivory Coast

Yaya Toure is one of the best professional footballers from Ivory Coast in West Africa. He was born on 13/05/1983. Yaya plies his trade for English giants Manchester City, as well as the national team of Ivory Coast. As a youngster, Yaya Toure, who is the brother to Kolo Toure, aspired to become a great striker. However, as fate had it, Yaya has played both as a centre back and a midfielder during his career. His gigantic posture and combative style of play have elevated Yaya to be one of the best known box-to-box players and often changes from a defensive player to an attacking player throughout an entire match.

Early in his career, Yaya Toure joined Asec Mimosas in his native Ivory Coast in 1996 as a youth player. He made his debut as an 18-year-old before moving to Beveren in Belgium in 2001. It was his performances during his time at Beveren that attracted the attention of other elite European clubs including Arsenal who recruited him for trials in the summer of 2003. Even though Arsenal's manager Arsene Wenger recognized Yaya's talent at the time, he could not sign the then 20-year-old owing to difficulties in obtaining a work permit, and also down to the fact that Yaya had not identified and cemented his best playing position. After failing at the chance of joining his elder brother, Kolo Toure, at Arsenal, Yaya Toure grew impatient and instead signed for Metarluh Donestk in Ukraine where he spent one and a half years. 

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After impressing in Ukraine, Yaya Toure earned himself a chance of joining Olympiacos in Greece in 2005 and helped the club to a double in his first season as one of the best performers. His performances in Greece, as well as his appearances for Ivory Coast at the 2006 World Cup helped trigger a move to Monaco in the summer of 2006. After a difficult and controversial start, Yaya picked himself up in the second half of the season to help Monaco, who had been languishing at the relegation zone, to avoid relegation. During this time, Yaya was being monitored by a host of big names in Europe and he signed for F.C Barcelona in the summer of 2007 for 10 million Euros. However, Yaya's career at Barcelona was not as successful as expected as he was often played out of position in defence to accommodate Sergio Busquets as the preferred holding midfielder. Nevertheless, Yaya won more than 10 trophies with the Catalan club in his three years at the club before earning a move to his current club Manchester City in 2010 for a fee of more than 24 million pounds.

Signing for Manchester City enabled Yaya Toure to team up with his elder brother Kolo Toure who had signed for Manchester City from Arsenal a season earlier. In his five seasons at Manchester, Yaya has helped the club to two English Premier League crowns and one FA Cup title. As far as his international career is concerned, Yaya Toure is the captain of the talented Ivory Coast squad, a role he took after the retirement of the legendary Didier Drogba. He has represented Ivory Coast in 3 World Cups and 6 Africa Nations Cup and captained them to the title in the in 2015.