Yaya Toure blasts African football players

Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure says
some African footballers need to show more
desire to make it to the very top of the game.
Toure, 30, is in the running to win the African
Footballer of the Year award for a fifth time after
the list of nominees was cut to a 10-man
shortlist earlier this week.
The Ivory Coast international is also the only
African on the shortlist for the FIFA Ballon d'Or
award for the fourth year in a row.
"I admit that I see too many of them acting
casually," he told France Football. "You'd say
that they're not always very hungry. Not hungry
enough, for my taste. They're not conscious
enough of the effort required to get to the very
top.
Of course it can go quite quickly at the start.
Too quickly, without a doubt. But when it comes
to climbing the final steps to get to the very top
with [Lionel] Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, there's
no longer anyone left."
Toure said part of the problem was that players
like himself, compatriot Didier Drogba, former
Cameroon striker Samuel Eto'o, Ghanaian
midfielder Michael Essien and ex-Nigeria attacker
Jay-Jay Okocha had set the bar very high for
those following them. But the Ivorian captain,
who won the African Nations Cup with his
country in January, believes some of the current
generation could be lacking ambition.
"It's possible," he said. "They let themselves go
too quickly sometimes. They're in their world.
They think they've arrived -- the most beautiful,
the strongest -- but they don't understand that
there are other steps to climb to get to the top.
Unfortunately a lot of them only see the good
side in this job: easy money, girls, nights out,
nice cars, nice clothes. They abandon the idea
of catching the best too quickly. They don't
always know how to suffer."
The former Barcelona player also believes
nothing should stop players from targeting
becoming the very best.
"There are no extraterrestrials among the best
players on the planet," he said. "Just guys who
want it a lot more than the others. Everything
starts from there -- I'm convinced of that."