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Story highlights
Toure says 'we'll see' when asked if he expects to still be at Manchester City next season
Midfielder relives the horror of hearing of the death of his brother Ibrahim at the World Cup
Toure's sights are now set on winning the African Cup of Nations with Ivory Coast
Yaya Toure has all the trappings of a English Premier League footballer.
There is the reported $334,000-a-week salary, the luxury homes and cars, not to mention the silverware from last season when Manchester City won the Premier League and the English League Cup.
Yet despite that success, including a fourth straight African Player of the Year title, the City and Ivory Coast talisman describes 2014 as “a horrible year.”
No wonder – it’s barely six months since his younger brother Ibrahim died while Toure and his brother Kolo were on World Cup duty in Brazil.
As for what lies in store during 2015, he’s no idea.
Asked if he wants to stay put at City, Toure says, in a wide-ranging interview with CNN’s Amanda Davies: “That’s a big question and that’s an easy question as well, and you have an easy answer … we’ll see.”
Pressed on whether he plans to still be at the Etihad Stadium for the 2015-16 Premier League season, he says: “I don’t know. I’m at City. City is a great club where I’ve achieved lots of things.”
Those less than equivocal answers bring us to Toure’s Marie Antoinette “Let them eat cake” moment.
After City’s title triumph last season, his agent Dimitri Seluk said Toure was upset that the Ivorian’s birthday hadn’t been properly “acknowledged” by the club.
“He got a cake but when it was Roberto Carlos’s birthday, the president of (Russian side) Anzhi (Makhachkala) gave him a Bugatti,” Seluk reportedly said.
“Sometimes it makes you disappointed when the story is going wrong,” says Toure looking back on the episode.
“I don’t want to open my heart up again and open my mind to the newspaper [reports] again because there have been such disappointing things running in the newspaper that have hurt me a lot. But I’m a guy who is very strong mentally.”
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Toure says he felt let down by certain individuals over how the story unfolded, though he’s not divulging any names.
However, he is quick to credit the City supporters as well as chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak and manager Manuel Pellegrini for ensuring he felt loved again.
Though it’s playing that provides the greatest solace.
“It’s only football that keeps me peaceful,” adds Toure. “It’s only the feeling of going after the ball that makes me happy. It’s only once I see the City fans singing my name and the manager told me I want to cover, to take more space, it makes me feel happy and it’s all I want.”
Toure is very much a player who wears his heart on his sleeve, and that becomes very apparent as he reflects on the highs and lows of 2014.
The biggest low came while in Brazil when news of Ibrahim’s death was broken to him over the phone by another of his brothers.
For Toure, the tragedy still remains raw: “2014 was, I think I can say, a horrible year for me.
“It was disappointing in the World Cup. Of course, we won the Premier League and the cup this year but I think with the death of my brother it was a hard one, the hardest one because I was not preparing to support such a situation.
“In the family you have one who you love, one who you care about above all the rest and I think Ibrahim was this guy. When he passed away … that time was quite difficult because we have the beginning of this season in the Premier League and to manage that was difficult.”
Amid the tragedy, Toure and sibling Kolo, who plays for Liverpool, opted to stay in Brazil and represent their country.
It’s a decision that he still regrets to this day.
Playing the ensuing game against Greece, he admits, “In my mind, I was thinking that after the game I was calling him [Ibrahim]. I was still asking ‘How do you feel about the game I played against Greece?’ But he passed away before the game.”
Perhaps the memory is in some ways just as raw now, with the brothers back in international action for their country for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Equatorial Guinea.
At this time the loyalties of all African players are tested, given so many play for top European club, which are often fighting for titles and cups.
“It’s difficult because your country and club is always our hardest divide especially the City fans, the chairman, the boss as well, they’re good with me and I want to give 100% when I’m there,” said the 31-year-old.
The Elephants are undeniably one of the strongest teams in the continent of Africa given they can call on the likes of the Toures, recent City signing Wilfried Bony, Salomon Kalou and Cheick Tiote.
But the nation have not always shone at international level – especially at Africa’s most prestigious tournament – winning just one AFCON title back in 1992, and finishing runners-up in 2006 and again two years ago.
“I think it’s the lack of concentration or maybe it’s because we fear our own team. We think we are the best but … you have to have desire, you have to have determination,” says Toure, reflecting on his country’s relative under-performance at the tournament.
“We have to be mentally ready for the hard battle because in Africa it’s not only the opponent we have to fight. We have to fight the temperature as well, we have to fight the field.”
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The tournament had been due to take place in Morocco but, amid fears of the Ebola crisis, the North African nation withdrew as hosts and Equatorial Guinea stepped in as hosts.
Ebola remains a talking point among players and Toure has no qualms that it’s something that concerns him ahead of an opening game against Guinea, where the disease has taken hold.
“It’s difficult when you feel like your family can maybe contract this infection, you’re a little bit afraid,” he says. “Yes, we fear but we can’t say we don’t want to go because it’s a situation we need to educate people because people don’t understand how to protect themselves against this infection.”
There was talk of perhaps scrapping the tournament for a year due to the threat posed by Ebola, but Toure believes organizers are right to go ahead.
“January is the time when the African people can enjoy,” he says. “The African player coming from Europe is like a moment in a dream for the African because, when they see us coming, they are always happy.
“It’s going to be like a big fiesta where people can enjoy, they can dance, they can love and they can do what they want.”
After Toure’s tumultuous 2014, he’s hopeful it will prove the perfect start to 2015.