For some time now, it was believed that Yaya Toure was on the verge of ending his international career and just focus on winning titles with Manchester City.
Yaya Toure along with Sergio Aguero are a few of the key players of the Premier League club and the English league is as competitive as it has ever been but despite this, Toure is eager on making a return to his national side after being absent for more than 9 months.
Ivory Coast manager Michel Dussuyer is unlikely to be without a couple of star names for the opening few rounds of the World Cup 2018 qualifiers.
Ivory Coast brought in Michel Dussuyer as the replacement for Herve Renard a few weeks ago. The national team is at a crossroad after this managerial change, but the Frenchman says that he has come to this job in order to win trophies.
Ivory Coast are regarded as one of the strongest African teams around. For years, they were regarded as favourites for the Africa Cup of Nations title. The long wait for this trophy recently came to an end with the likes of Yaya Touré contributing immensely in the victory in 2015.
Ghana’s Speaker of Parliament Rt. Hon. Edward Doe Adjaho believes that the absence of Stephen Appiah was a major contributing factor in the national team’s disappointing showing at the World Cup 2014.
The former Ghana captain was recently a guest for the Speaker to witness a friendly match.
Regarded as one of finest players for Ghana over the last decade, Stephen Appiah was the captain of the national team during the 2006 and the 2010 World Cup. Ghana performed exceedingly well in these tournaments and Adjaho says that it was largely down to the leadership skills of Appiah.
The FBI has been investing heavily into the world football governing body, FIFA, over allegations of corruption primarily relating to the award of the World Cups. Since Sepp Blatter took charge of FIFA in 1998, the World Cup has been held in Europe only once – in 2006.
HerveRenard is regarded as one of the successful managers in African football after having won the coveted Africa Cup of Nations title twice in his career.
Yaya Toure might become another Ivory Coast player to call it a day as far as International Football is concerned.
A couple of guys have left the scenes for Ivory Coast off late after the historic AFCON victory and it seems now the skipper Toure is also planning to follow the suit.
An announcement is being expected from Toure at some point of time this week.
February 8 of 2015 was a historical day for the national team of Ivory Coast as they defeated Ghana in the finals of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in a dramatic penalty session that saw all of the players of both teams taking the set-piece as they attempted to help their respective nations in sealing the piece of silverware which is awarded to a national team every 2 years.
Manchester City will be losing star midfielder Yaya Touré for up to a month during January, as the Ivory Coast international will be travelling to Africa in order to take part in the Africa Cup of Nations.
Touré is one of the popular names in African football and the 31-year-old is expected to provide a major lift to Ivory Coast in the efforts to finally win this trophy with the so-called Golden generation. Players like Didier Drogba representing some of the biggest clubs in the world, but we were unable to take Ivory Coast to success in this competition.
Didier Drogba announced his retirement from playing at the international stage with Ivory Coast on August 4 of the current year which was a huge blow for the national team of the African country as Drogba hanged up his boots for his country after having scored 65 goals.