Before coming to Manchester City, Yaya Toure had played in Belgium,
Ukraine, Greece, France and Spain, but the big difference he noticed
in English football compared to any league in Europe was the physicality.
“In Spain, he remembers, “if I collected the ball from the defender, I felt like I had close to 10
seconds on the ball. In the Premier League, it was maybe three seconds. In those early games,
I would take the ball from the defender with my back to the centre circle and then - BAM!
This kept happening and he thought it would be impossible for him ever to adjust.
But he would, becoming one of the finest midfielders in the
league’s history – and a conversation with a Manchester City club physio
helped him to develop the armoury to deal with that physical challenge.
The physio suggested building the strength in his hips and his backside,
as a way of absorbing the shock of the contact.
“It sounds funny”, Toure told the Athletic, “but your bum can be a very important tool when
you play football. It can create a moment of space between you and another player,
so you have more time with the ball.
There was a good example of this in 2018, during the Manchester derby,
when Raheem Sterling took the ball to the corner flag late in the game.
Two or three United players came over to get the ball from him but he held them off with sharp,
quick movements with his hips down low and both feet planted on the ground.
Harry Kane is another that Toure identifies as using his bum well,
particularly when he has his back to goal against defenders.
And N’Golo Kante can be very hard to dispossess, too. He’s a short player anyway, but by sticking
his backside out his centre of gravity becomes even lower when receiving the ball,
with the effect – Toure thinks - that tackling him must feel like kicking a stone.
He also noticed a funny moment during Portugal’s game with Germany, when Renato Sanches had the
ball and Emre Can was trying to steal it. Toure played against Can and remembers him as a strong
player, but “when he tried to shock Sanches, he ran straight into his bum and fell over.”
On Toure also played against Eden Hazard.
He estimates that, because he’s so dangerous, Hazard has less than
five seconds before the opposition are on him. “When the ball arrives”, Toure says,
“he can already sense the opponent coming towards him, so he waits until the last moment and uses
his bum to block them. It pushes the opponent away – almost like a punch – and then, when
he has opened up that space between him and the defender, he will power away and start an attack.
Other players have similar traits. Antoine Griezmann, for instance, as well as Luis Suarez
and Toure’s former teammate Sergio Aguero, but there is no one better at it than Eden Hazard.
But there’s an array of players at the Euros who play in similar way, regardless of their different
body types. Romelu Lukaku and Paul Pogba, for instance, who use their backsides to create more
time to control the ball with their technique, or even smaller players – like Kante – who
can use the technique of their hips and their bum to be more physical when they need to be.
Toure didn’t develop the ability until later in his career, mainly because he didn’t need to.
“When I was at Barcelona as I was one of the bigger players and the referees
would give fouls more if a player charged at me.”
For smaller players, however, learning how to create that extra time is imperative.
“I played with Lionel Messi too and there was nearly always someone on him when he tried to
dribble but he managed to always get out of the tackle. When you use your bum properly,
you have greater time to get better control of the ball and get out from tight spaces
and people pressing you, which is one of the big challenges in the modern game.
It’s the secret weapon nobody really talks about.