Yaya Toure and the concept of greatness

“Pass me the beard trimmer”, “Coldplay on the Pyramid stage”, “John Major and Edwina Currie”; some sentences just look wrong. And to that list can be added “Yaya Toure can’t do it in Europe”.

But this season represents probably his final chance to disprove it. The problem, our sages teach, is an inability to cope with tricksy technicians whose passing and movement leaving him standing.

This is, to quote Roger Mellie, “b******s”. Paul Scholes, Andrea Pirlo and Juan Sebastian Veron are just three examples of players far less athletic than Toure who consistently excelled in the Champions League. And where they are defined by flawless technique - pure footballers – Toure, unencumbered by their physical limitations, is a total footballer. In the 2009 final, he played in the centre of a Barcelona defence that kept a clean sheet against Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo, while for Manchester City, he has catalysed success in various midfield positions and also from off the front. Yaya Toure can do it in Europe.

So, why hasn’t he? Well, to a significant extent, because of the mistakes of others: City have also been chronically mismanaged. To win their two titles, they had to rely on a team above them faltering just before the line, at a time when the standard at the top of the Premier League was not high. As such, there is no excuse for the continuing assumption that there are no tactical tweaks required when playing against the best sides in the world. But Manuel Pellegrini’s determination to field strikers in partnership has seen his leading artist defeated by implacable science in midfield: three is a bigger number than two.

When Toure was at his peak, Roberto Mancini would pick a team that gave him a platform to perform: often, Gareth Barry and Nigel de Jong would both start, and on other occasions, one would be brought on to augment the other and liberate those in front. Pellegrini, on the other hand, has generally refused to do similarly, while those responsible for “recruitment” have prioritised specificity above quality.

Though City have been dealt tricky groups, it still ought not to have taken them three goes to reach the knockout stages. Nor, in the end, ought Toure to have contributed so little – in basic terms, six goals in 26 games. The best players – great players – rise to and transcend adverse circumstances. Toure has not.

His status as a City great, though, is indisputable. In 2011, he scored the derby winner that took them to their first FA Cup final in a generation; he then scored the goal that won their first trophy in 35 years. In 2012, his goals at Newcastle were crucial in helping City to their first league championship since 1968; in 2014, he scored a brilliant goal to retrieve a League Cup final deficit, and his form at clutch was the decisive factor in City regaining the title.

All of which is to say that as a big-game player, he has few comparators in English football – Mark Hughes, Norman Whiteside, Freddie Ljungberg and Didier Drogba spring to mind, so too Michael Owen (you laugh, but it’s true). Yet, great players do not intervene in big games but in all the games.

Perhaps Toure’s problem is that he frequently needs a certain level of intensity to get interested, far from a unique affliction: Ronnie O’Sullivan doesn’t play every tournament; Gary Anderson holds the darts Premier League and world titles but nothing else; Michael Vaughan wasn’t so fussed with Yorkshire after he was picked for England.

In football, there is a traditional response to this syndrome, which goes roughly as follows: “I’d love to do his job; I’d do it for free and give 138.46% every game!”

This is, to quote Roger Mellie, “b******s”. With the exception of Roy Keane, who may be neither human nor on this planet, there is no human on this planet who never skives. Consider, for example, how often you see a fighter prematurely gas, despite the risk of a public beatdown; there can be no more touching tribute to the laziness of our species. But, should you not find the example sufficiently illustrative, simply consider yourself, before concluding that Toure does what we’d really love to do: mooch around looking distant and cool before resolving things definitively.

If you’ve a player who can alter the course of a game with a single piece of unfathomable brilliance, asking him to spend 90 minutes charging around isn’t the best way to make sure that you get it; peaking is hard, and maintaining a peak is harder. A football team requires all sorts of personalities and abilities, and each come with advantages and disadvantages; if there aren’t the players around him to fill in the gaps, that doesn’t make it his fault.

Like Steven Gerrard, Toure is not a player of matches but of moments. And this is no kind of insult; football is a game of moments. So, though the Champions League may never happen for Toure at City, in a lot of ways, it doesn’t much matter. No one will forget the dismissive swipes into the top corner, nor the buzz of him rumbling through midfield with minimum effort and maximum prejudice; what kickboxing calls “rolling thunder”.

But, perhaps most importantly of all, his influence has extended beyond the pitch. Arguably no man has done more to dispel the “fast, powerful, athletic” stereotype used, wittingly or otherwise, to patronise and demean sub-Saharan Africans. Throughout his career, Toure has played with touch and wit, as sharp as he is strong, making difficult things easy.

In such context, there would be something pointed about Toure ending his career in China, daring to please himself instead of those who demand that he perform for their pleasure in a league that suits them. Manchester City signing him for £24m and paying him £200,000 a week despite 34 years without a trophy is fine; unfettered capitalism in football is not.

In the end, though, what matters most aren’t measurable things like trophies and goals, but how people were made to feel. And Toure has made them feel, crafting astounding instants to shatter credulity, contort limbs, brand souls and fortify friendships. No, that probably isn’t enough for greatness, but if it makes you a hero, who cares?