As one of the best clubs in England over the past 14 years or so, Manchester City have had plenty of the world’s best players in their ranks of late.
From the heroes of the 2010/11 FA Cup win and the 2011/12 Premier League title to those who recently enjoyed four titles in a row and the 2023 Treble, City have certainly had plenty of stars in recent years.
Yaya Toure was one of Manchester City’s heroes from the ‘earlier’ era, having starred for the club between 2010 and 2018.
Indeed, he was the man who helped end City’s trophy drought, scoring the only goal in the 2011 FA Cup final win over Stoke City.
Toure joined City from Barcelona in 2010 and he recently shared an anecdote about the football culture shock he received on his first day training at Carrington.
Yaya Toure was shocked by Manchester City doing gym work in training
Toure, speaking on The Obi One podcast, told Mikel John Obi of how Barca would not put much emphasis on gym work during the season.
This was different from how things were done at City, and indeed in the Premier League as a whole, where gym work – particularly upper body – was normal.
“First day I arrived to Manchester City,” began Toure. “Before training, I go to the dressing room, finish dressing room, I go, just do some stretching.
“I saw some of the players. ‘Let’s squat!’. Micah Richards, he’s like, ‘gym!’. I said ‘what? How are we going to do that?'”.
He continued: “Not before the games. Before the training. And because in England, you have to have some… you know what I mean?
“In England, those teams, we do, they do all the time, gym. In Spain we don’t do that.
“When I was in Barcelona in pre-season, we do gym. When the league starts, we do some flexibility. A little bit core, you know, feet, legs. Up (upper body), nothing.
“That’s why when you see, we see in that time, a Spanish player like, in Barcelona, for example, even Samuel Eto’o.
“You remember Samuel when he takes off his jersey, skinny up there. The legs are strong, but skinny up there. We are like that.”
Yaya Toure career at Manchester City
Sometimes you can tell when players simply can’t acclimatise to a certain club or league, and this was simply not the case with Toure.
He became a star at City, making 316 competitive appearances and registering 80 goals and 45 assists.
Toure also won three Premier League titles, one FA Cup and three League Cups at City to go along with a host of other trophies won elsewhere.
These include a Champions League, two La Liga titles, a Spanish Cup, a Spanish Supercup, a UEFA Supercup and a Club World Cup at Barcelona, plus an Africa Cup of Nations with Cote d’Ivoire.
Toure is currently an assistant coach with the Saudi Arabia men’s national team.
