Yaya Touré joins Tottenham coaching set-up
Touré, 39, who lives with his family in Hampstead, North London, hung up his boots in 2020
Cote d’ Ivoire football legend Yaya Touré has joined Tottenham Hotspur as an academy coach, while Jermain Defoe is set to join the former Manchester City midfielder in a similar role at the Hotspur Way training centre next month.
Touré, one of the finest Premier League midfielders of his generation, has joined on a full-time basis after working in the academy in a part-time role since November.
Defoe, who scored 143 goals in 363 appearances during three spells at Spurs, will return to the club at which he holds iconic status having announced his retirement from playing in March during a second spell at Sunderland.
Touré, 39, who lives with his family in Hampstead, North London, hung up his boots in 2020 after six months with the Chinese Super League club Qingdao Huanghai.
The Ivorian held coaching positions at the Ukrainian club Olimpik Donetsk and the Russian club Akhmat Grozny but after leaving the latter in June 2021 said that he had been too impatient.
In an interview in The Times in March, Touré, who studied for his Uefa A licence with the Wales FA and will enrol on the Pro Licence course in the autumn, said: “It’s important I go through the steps.
I’m working with the academy now, it’s a nice step to learn. The under-18s’ passion is incredible and they are so smart and so clever. You can set up tactics and one of them will ask a question you have not thought about. I understand football as a player but as a coach it’s different.”
Defoe, also 39, who won 57 England caps, scoring 20 goals, had a brief spell on Rangers’ coaching staff after the manager, Steven Gerrard, left the club last year. Touré and Defoe follow Scott Parker, now the Bournemouth manager, and Ryan Mason, now a member of Antonio Conte’s first-team backroom staff, in beginning their coaching careers in Tottenham’s academy.
