Ivory Coast international football player, Yaya Toure, says some African footballers are not trying enough to be their very best.
Having said last month that not enough African players are recognised for football’s top individual award, he has now suggested many who join European clubs are not willing to give enough.
Speaking with France Football, he said:
“I admit that I see too many of them acting casually. You’d say that they’re not always very hungry. Not hungry enough, for my taste. They’re not conscious enough of the effort required to get to the very top.“Of course it can go quite quickly at the start. Too quickly, without a doubt. But when it comes to climbing the final steps to get to the very top with [Lionel] Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, there’s no longer anyone left.“They let themselves go too quickly sometimes. They’re in their world. They think they’ve arrived — the most beautiful, the strongest — but they don’t understand that there are other steps to climb to get to the top. Unfortunately a lot of them only see the good side in this job: easy money, girls, nights out, nice cars, nice clothes. They abandon the idea of catching the best too quickly. They don’t always know how to suffer.”
He also said part of the problem was that players like himself, compatriot Didier Drogba, former Cameroon striker Samuel Eto’o, Ghanaian midfielder Michael Essien and ex-Nigeria attacker Jay-Jay Okocha had set the bar very high for those following them.
Toure, who is now 30, is in the running to win the African Footballer of the Year award for a fifth time after the list of nominees was cut to a 10-man shortlist earlier this week. He is also the only African on the shortlist for the FIFA Ballon d’Or award for the fourth year in a row.
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