June 5 – Just weeks after receiving a rapturous send-off after his final game for Manchester City, Yaya Toure has launched a remarkable broadside against title-winning coach Pep Guardiola.
Saying he was out to “break the myth” about Guardiola’s famed coaching reputation, Toure all but accuses the Spaniard of racism.
“Maybe we Africans are not always treated by some in the same way as others,” the Ivory Coast international told France Football magazine.
Toure also played for Guardiola at Barcelona for two seasons until he was sold to City in 2010 for £24 million. He won six major trophies in England but started just one Premier League game in City’s title-winning campaign last season – their final home fixture of the season against Brighton.
Prior to that game, Guardiola promised “a beautiful farewell” for Touré while to mark his departure the City chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, arranged for the club’s main training pitch to be named after Touré in recognition of his contribution
Yet Toure, who at 35 became increasingly marginalised, has opened up like never before about the way he claims he was treated by Guardiola.
He told France Football: “I would have preferred to have no ceremony and leave with my head higher. I have the impression that Pep, without acknowledgment or respect, did everything to spoil my last season. It hurts when you spent eight years in a club. He stole my farewells with City, a club where the fans are beautiful. I would have liked to leave with emotion of this club as could Iniesta or Buffon. But Pep prevented me.”
“He was cruel to me. I came to wonder if it was not because of my colour. I am not the first to talk about these differences in treatment. In Barca, some have also asked the question.
“When we realise he often has problems with Africans wherever he goes, I ask myself questions. I want to be the one who breaks the myth of Guardiola.”
“He [Guardiola] insists he has no problems with black players, because he is too intelligent to be caught out,” said Toure. “But the day he will line up a team in which we find five Africans, not naturalised, I promise I will send him a cake.”
“Pep likes to dominate and wants to have obedient players who lick his hands. I do not like this kind of relationship. I respect my coach but I am not his thing. Like all players I have bickered with my coaches. But at a certain point men who do not understand each other reconcile. This is not possible with Pep, who is very rigid. The other players will never admit it publicly but some have already told me that they ended up hating him. Because he manipulates and plays a lot with your head.”
“We always looked at each other weirdly. He was spinning around me without saying anything, watching me, gauging me but not talking to me. Yet he knows that I speak Catalan, Spanish and English. It should be enough to communicate. But apparently no … Every time we passed each other, he seemed embarrassed. As if I made him a little self-conscious. As if, also, he had understood that I knew him perfectly.”
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