- Yaya Touré became the head coach of Slovan Bratislava with a three-year contract.
- The vacancy arose after the departure of Vladimír Weiss Sr. to represent Slovakia.
Yaya Toure became the new coach of Slovan Bratislava football players. The management of the Slovak champion announced this on their website, stating that they had agreed on a three-year contract with the 43-year-old former successful footballer.
The native of the Ivory Coast was among the main adepts for the post vacated by Vladimír Weiss Sr., the former coach of the “Whites” was taken over by the Slovakian national team after the season. CEO of Slovan Ivan Kmotrík Jr. two weeks ago he revealed that, in addition to Toure, Slovan also negotiated with Igor Biščan, Sergej Rebrov, Valerien Ismael and was also interested in the services of Robbie Keane.
For the former Manchester City and FC Barcelona midfielder, this will be his first appointment as the head coach of the A-team. He gained coaching experience mainly in the role of assistant, he worked in Olimpik Donetsk, Akhmat Grozny, Standard Liege and most recently in the Saudi Arabian national team alongside Roberto Mancini. As a player, he won the Champions League with Barcelona and won three Premier League titles with Manchester City.
“First of all, I am very happy that Yaya Touré is our new head coach. I am happy that he and I have agreed on a three-year contract and together we will start building a new era of Slovan Bratislava from Monday. Of course, I was aware all along that it would not be easy to replace Coach Weiss. From the beginning, I had a clear idea and vision in which direction Slovan should move forward. My goal was to bring a person and a personality who experienced the greatest world football. And at the same time, he has a huge motivation to break through as a coach. I had several personal meetings with Yaya Touré. However, it all started with the first video interview, where he made an amazing impression on me.
The first impression was already so strong that it was very difficult for other candidates to overcome it. I immediately felt from him that we were on the same page and shared a similar mindset on how to be successful. Yaya has a great desire and motivation to succeed as a coach with Slovan Bratislava. We have high goals in common, we are both young, ambitious, and we will do our best to be successful as a club. I believe that we managed to put together a good implementation team, that we will have a strong team and together we will start working on the new era of the club from Monday. There are new challenges ahead of us, which I am very much looking forward to together with Yaya Touré as our head coach.” said Ivan Kmotrík Jr., the general director of the club.
A sharp start awaits Toure now, Slovan will find out on June 17th at the draw in Nyon the opponent for the 2nd qualifying round of the Champions League. His possible opponents include Aarhus GF (Denmark), FC Thun (Switzerland), Mjällby AIF (Sweden), Víkingur Reykjavík (Iceland), FC Kairat (Kazakhstan), Universitatea Craiova (Romania), Riga FC (Latvia), KÍ Klaksvík (Faroe Islands), Flora Tallinn (Estonia), Larne FC (Northern Ireland), Petrocub Hîncești (Moldova), TNS (Wales), Inter d´Escaldes (Andorra), Levski Sofia (Bulgaria), FC Ararat-Armenia (Armenia), Sabah FK (Azerbaijan), Kauno Žalgiris (Lithuania), Sutjeska Nikšič (Montenegro), ETO FC Györ (Hungary), Iberia 1999 (Georgia), KF Egnatia (Albania), Floriana FC (Malta), Tre Fiori (San Marino), FK Vardar Skopje (North Macedonia), ML Vitebsk (Belarus) and FC Atert Bissen (Luxembourg).
“I’m very happy and excited, I honestly can’t wait to get to work together on Monday. My predecessor deserves great respect for what he achieved with Slovan. I want to build on it, and at the same time bring something new, my own. Football is everything to me. I love challenges and I’m really looking forward to coaching a big club with a rich history, a beautiful stadium and high ambitions. I was very pleasantly surprised by the club facilities, which are really at a high level.
With Slovan, I want to play dominant football, win, control matches so that we can please our fans. I’m looking forward to getting to know the players personally. I have already tried to study the team in as much detail as possible, but the most important thing will be to see how the players will react directly in training. As an assistant, I had the opportunity to work with Roberto Mancini, for example, but for a long time I wanted to be able to work on my own project as a head coach. I appreciate that this opportunity comes at a top club that I recently watched in a Champions League game with Manchester City. I really can’t wait for Monday, I’m excited about what lies ahead,” said the new coach of the Whites.
