Yaya Toure: If I could pick one Manchester City player for Ivory Coast, it would be Mario Balotelli

The midfielder reveals his admiration for the Italian striker, and also claims the controversial attacker isn't as bad as the media portray him, insisting he is misunderstood

4 Feb 2012 09:03:00

More On :  Ivory Coast, Manchester City, Yaya Touré
FA Cup Final: Yaya Toure; Mario Balotelli, Manchester City v Stoke City
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EXCLUSIVE
By Greg Stobart | Northern Correspondent

Yaya Toure has revealed that if he could choose one Manchester City team-mate to turn out for the Ivory Coast alongside him, he would pick Italy international Mario Balotelli.

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Toure is currently away on Africa Cup of Nations duty, preparing for a quarter-final against co-hosts Equatorial Guinea, and he admits he would like it if his City team-mate was able to line-up with him for The Elephants.

The former Barcelona midfielder claimed he would pick Balotelli ahead of any other City player to play for his national side, mentioning him ahead of illustrious names such as David Silva and Sergio Aguero.

Balotelli is momentarily out of action as he serves a four-match ban for an alleged stamp on Scott Parker’s head, and while many criticise the Italian for his often erratic behaviour, Toure is firmly of the belief that the talented striker is purely misunderstood, insisting he is as committed as anyone.

Toure told Goal.com: “If I could choose one City player to play for the Ivory Coast it would be Mario.

“Whatever you hear about him is just newspaper stuff and I wish I had been as committed as him when I was his age.

“He is such a powerful guy and his concentration levels are unbelievable.

“He is young, so sometimes one or two things he does are maybe misunderstood but for me it is all part of his charm.

“You cannot take away his quality on the field and in the end that is what really matters.”

Since Toure left for international duty, City have lost three of their last six matches in all competitions, getting knocked out of both the League Cup and FA Cup in the process, while their talismanic midfielder may not be available until late February should Ivory Coast reach the Afcon final.

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England 1-0 Belgium, Netherlands 4-0 Northern Ireland - follow all the international action LIVE! ahead of Euro 2012
With countries across the continent gearing up for their final warm-up games ahead of Euro 2012, join us for all the action from Saturday's friendlies. Get in touch with us via Twitter with your reaction.

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20:06 BST
So, that game gave a few players a chance to impress for England. Who did/didn't? Will Welbeck start against France? Or Carroll? Or Defoe?!

19:59 BST
Unfortunately for Northern Ireland, they are trailing the Netherlands 4-0 at half-time. Looks like that one's all sewn up then.
19:54 BST
We're still getting plenty of Hazard chat on Twitter. A few are now saying that he's not worth the hype, others saying he was brilliant(!?) and others (which I agree with), saying he created much of his own hype. What do you think? Get involved!
19:46 BST
Joe Hart has also been giving his thoughts after the Belgium game: "It was a really tough game, a good run out. I thought we played well, [but] we were a little bit bitty at times.

"But, we came through. Obviously there were a lot of changes so it's good to get the result.

"Belgium are a very, very strong side who are going to be really good in the future. Vincent [Kompany] told me about them and said that they were coming good and I totally agree with him."
19:38 BST
Here's Roy Hodgson's reaction to the result and some injury chat: "I'm very pleased, it's been a hard week and we've used a lot of players. There was a lot of disruption in the second-half with substitutions – some forced upon us, some we wanted to do. But it's still a very good end to the week playing against a good Belgian team here. Arguably even stronger than the Norwegian team we played last week and I've got to be more than happy that we've come out with another victory."

"[Gary] Cahill I suppose is slightly more of a concern for me because it is a jaw injury. We're desperately hoping the CT scan doesn't show any fracture and it's just going to be a bruising situation, which will be bad enough, but won't stop him taking part in the tournament. As far as John's [Terry] concerned he felt his hamstring a little bit. Again it wasn't a major thing when he came off but we still need to scan it just to be 100 per cent sure."

Suffice to say, if Cahill has broken his jaw, he won't play any part in the tournament.
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