There are reasons why a move to Manchester City might have appealed to Yaya Toure in July 2010.
One of these can be written on a piece of paper. This is also known as his wage slip since the midfielder was reported to have become the highest-earning player in English football when he signed for City, earning around £250,000 a week.
The other reasons can be accounted for without the need to get the bank manager on the phone. Toure stepped lightly from Barcelona to move to England but was laden with silverware: two league titles, one Copa del Rey, the Supercopa de Espana, a Champions League trophy, the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup, all picked up at Camp Nou. Having been part of a side which dominated Spain, Toure was eager to find a new world to conquer.
The empire which City are attempting to build appealed to him and the midfielder will be relied upon to gain further territory in Europe by leading City through the last 16 of the Champions League. That will begin in Manchester, in the first leg of a tie with Barca.
"Since I have come to City we have always been on top," said Toure. "I have won trophies here and some individual awards and I am very happy here. When I came it was the right time to move and I do believe we have the manager, the players, the squad to win the Champions League.
"Some people might think I came for other reasons, but I'd been [with Barcelona] for three years and won everything I could so there was nothing else for me to win. City was a new challenge."
It is one which has brought him back in contact with old friends, with Barca alighting at the Etihad Stadium on the back of a 6-0 win in the league. The Catalan side have lost some of their lustre this season - progress to the final of the Copa del Rey was achieved simply, but it was not spectacular - and there has been little indication that City are trembling as Barca roll into town.
"The manager will decide but I think it's important that we stick to our game, that we go on the attack because we have attacking players," said Pablo Zabaleta, the City defender. "It's a special match."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article