Manchester City will say goodbye to one of their modern greats on Wednesday night when Yaya Touré plays in sky blue at the Etihad for the final time.

Pep Guardiola, the City manager, has already promised the 34-year-old a “beautiful farewell” against Brighton and Hove Albion and alongside the pageantry, there will also be a more permanent tribute - a corner of east Manchester that will be forever Yaya.

A pitch at the City Football Academy has been named after the midfielder and will be signposted by a mosaic of his celebration following his decisive goal in the 2011 FA Cup final against Stoke City at Wembley, a goal that ended the club’s 35-year wait for a major trophy and kick-started the Sheikh Mansour’s growing collection of silverware.

It was a symbolic moment in Touré’s Etihad career, but perhaps not quite as symbolic as the semi-final that preceded it, when Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United were downed by another Touré strike and significant blow was struck in a Manchester football’s burgeoning power struggle.

Ferguson once famously boasted of knocking Liverpool “off their f***ing perch”. Touré believes City have now done the very same to United and he considers that sense of a growing superiority - first found in that 2011 semi-final - to be the greatest achievement of his eight years here.

“When I came to City, for them to be a big club, we had to put [United] in their shadow,” he said on the eve of his farewell. "That was the purpose. To come to City, to put United in the shadow, although that would be difficult.

“But the semi-final was a big part of it. That day, we had fans, even the players. I'd been in touch with Rio [Ferdinand], one of my big brothers - as a player and as a person. When I scored that goal, of course he was angry. But it was a message. They knew City was going to come.

"United was in our way. We had to remove them, they were such a force, they won the league that year. To come to the game, they had such confidence, they thought they were going to beat us.”

United easily could have. Dimitar Berbatov, deputising for a suspended Wayne Rooney, spurned early chances to hand Ferguson’s men a healthy lead and by the interval, City had been decidedly second best.



“At half time we were nearly fighting in the dressing room,” Touré remembered, before recalling the words that inspired a second-half rally. “Go out and play like men - or we go home again and say to Khaldoon [Al Mubarak, City’s chairman]: 'Thank you, we've eaten the money but we move on because this club will never achieve.’

"We had that chat and you saw a different City in the second half. That's why we won the game. It was brilliant, awesome.”

A league title was memorably won at United’s expense the season after, but Touré’s best form arguably came in the lead up to City’s second Premier League title win in the 2013/14 campaign.

The Ivorian scored 24 goals from midfield that year, 20 in the league campaign alone, but it ended with Touré’s agent Dimitri Seluk claiming that his achievements should command more respect within English football.

Four years on, Touré still believes he deserves to be shown more appreciation. “I think maybe when I am retired from football I will have more respect.” But not enough yet? “No, I don't think so. What I have achieved and what I have done, I don't think so.

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“That is why I am a little bit sad because people put a lot of pressure on Paul Pogba, because they want to compare him to me. We are different. I put the game so far away that people think it is easy.

“People don't know how dedicated I was. I was so dedicated. This football club was my first wife to be honest. Even my wife knew it,” he added. “I was going home and I have my computer and I watch the games. After training, after games, recovery time, I am still able to go to the gym and work on it. It was like that all these years.”

This last year has been particularly challenging, with Touré appearing just 16 times for City in all competitions. At 34-years-old, he has been ushered into a mentoring role by Guardiola and though the City manager confirmed on Tuesday that Touré will play from the off against Brighton, it will be his first start of the triumphant league campaign.

“I am very sad about it,” he admitted. “I wanted to be more part of it on the field, not out of the field. But look in our dressing room and they are all competitors now, with the will to win and to achieve. It's a great ability, and I love it.

“As one of the older guys at this club, you have to help things carry on going. I remember when Kun [Aguero] was in great form and Gabriel Jesus was not playing and not happy as he was not being picked, I took him to one side and gave him a pat on the back. The manager doesn't know I'm doing that.

“I was like that myself. It's been hard for me at times, too. I look at the kids around me and know I have had had to be an example, even though it's been hard at times, and I have felt it's been so unfair on my part. I have had to stay with positive things, because I love to learn, I love a challenge.”

Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak joins Yaya Toure at the City Football Academy to rename a pitch at the club’s training ground after the midfielder. Al Mubarak unveiled a Yaya-inspired mosaic besides the training pitch to celebrate Toure’s eight years at the club ahead of his final game at the Etihad on Wednesday night. (Manchester City)

Touré is yet to settle on where that next challenge will be but hopes to remain in the Premier League, even if that means playing against City.

"I'm a competitor, this is the difficult part,” he said. “I said to the TV people, my mum says: 'If you love something, keep it for you but if you leave it, it's free to do what it wants.'

“That's my view. If you let me go, I have to face you. I'm a big fan of the Gladiator movie. When I go, it is between you and me, I have to win, I have to survive, I have to carry on. I would never celebrate a goal against City. I don't want to face them but if I want to stay in the Premier League, I will have to.”

If he plans to return to the Etihad as an opposition player, showing a stiff upper lip during Wednesday’s farewell may be good practice. Touré, for his part, does not expect to become overwhelmed with emotion.