Barcelona fans may never get over their distress caused by Luis Figo’s treachery in moving to Real Madrid four seasons ago, but now they have the satisfaction of knowing that they have got their own back. Ask any Real fan whether he thinks that it was a good idea to let Samuel Eto’o join Barcelona last year and they will weep bitter tears.
The talk among the Chelsea faithful was all about Ronaldinho in the build-up to Wednesday’s Champions League tie between the league leaders of England and Spain. And quite right, too, because the world player of the year is a joy to behold — with the arguable exception of Zinedine Zidane, he is the most thrilling artist in the game.
But in terms of sheer brute effectiveness, the man the Chelsea players had to keep their eyes on was the one who last week was voted African Footballer of the Year for the second season running.
Eto’o is the top scorer in the Spanish first division, with 17 goals in 23 games. But he is much more than a goalscorer. If Ronaldinho offers the silky skill in the Barcelona team, Eto’o provides the electricity. No player in the Spanish league has a more explosive turn of pace, except perhaps Real’s Ronaldo.
But if Ronaldo is a rampaging buffalo, Eto’o is a fleet-footed gazelle. If Ronaldo, a veteran of innumerable battles at the age of 28, seems at times to have lost some of his appetite for the game, Eto’o, at 23, personifies more than any other player the hunger and desire that have characterised Barcelona this season.
Lethal in the penalty area, he operates all over the pitch, driving the team forward, leading the charge, exhibiting a feathery first touch on the run and creating as many goals as he scores. Strong on both feet, he is one of those players who is virtually impossible to stop legally once he builds up a head of steam with the ball.
Fans of Real remember the manner in which he applied the coup de grâce on their team’s catastrophic final weeks of last season. Playing for Mallorca against Real in Madrid in May, Eto’o scored twice in a 3-2 victory for the islanders. For the second goal, he went past three players at speed, rounding off with a bullet of a shot from the edge of the area.
As the Bernabeu reluctantly rose to applaud the goal, Eto’o ran in the direction of the VIPs’ box, brandishing a finger of defiant reproach (but also with a suggestion of ”come and get me”) at Real president Florentino Perez.
Eto’o arrived in Spain from Cameroon at the age of 16 in the 1996/97 season. Someone had tipped Real off well because in 1998 he became the youngest player to play in a World Cup finals, aged 17 years and three months.
But he never quite made the grade at Real, mainly because they were too impatient, so during the 1999/2000 season they did a deal with Mallorca. They sold him, but on the understanding that if Mallorca were to resell him, Real would get half the takings. Real also had first option on buying him back.
Eto’o became the biggest thing in the history of Mallorca football club, scoring twice in their 3-0 Spanish Cup final triumph over Recreativo Huelva in 2003. But last year the pressure to sell him became irresistible to the Mallorca board. Did Real want him? In fairness to Perez, they did — but not at that time. Real’s quota of non-European Union players was full and what they sought to do was to convince Eto’o to stay for one more season at Mallorca and then move to Real.
Eto’o, as his gesture to Perez at the Bernabeu indicated, wanted to return to the Madrid fold. But Real did not convince him fully enough of the sincerity of their intentions and Eto’o was not that eager to postpone his shot at glory, especially knowing that Barcelona were in the running to sign him.
In the end, Barcelona got their man, for £18-million. Almost as much of an idol as Ronaldinho at the Nou Camp, and with every indication that he will rank among the great players of Europe for much of the next decade, Eto’o has proved to be the bargain buy of the season.
Iker Casillas, the Real goalkeeper, spoke for teammates and Real fans alike when he said in an interview last week that the Cameroon striker had been good when they played together in the youth team, but he had never imagined that he would turn into such a fine player. ”He is phenomenal now,” Casillas said.
Phenomenal, too, is how fans in Spain generally and Barcelona in particular view Chelsea’s progress this season. Mourinho, who was perceived as an innocuous character during his days as sidekick to Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal at Barcelona, is viewed now with the deepest respect.
This Barca team, on the other hand, are not perceived to be quite so much the brainchild of the coach. Liked more than admired, the Dutchman Frank Rijkaard is a low-key figure, a steady hand at the tiller who has managed to coax the best out of an excellent cast of attacking players. But no one has accused him of being a tactical genius.
In Eto’o, Ronaldinho, Deco and Ludovic Giuly, he has hit upon an attacking quartet whose talents and enthusiasm complement each other, when they are at their best, magnificently. Xavi, the Catalan midfielder, will be remembered by England fans as the orchestrator of the 1-0 defeat by Spain at the Bernabeu in November. With him as the link between defence and attack, Barca have played some of the most exciting football in Europe this season, not least in their 2-1 defeat of Milan at the Nou Camp in the same month.
However, since the new year, they seem to have lost their lustre, allowing Real to close the gap to just four points. At one stage it was 13. This is perhaps the draining consequence of having endured one crippling injury after another, not least that of Henrik Larsson, the Sweden and former Celtic striker who looked as if he would be a perfect foil to Eto’o up front until he suffered a serious injury to his left knee and his season was ended.
Having looked at Christmas as if they would win the Spanish league at a canter, Barca now have a resurgent Real breathing down their necks. They do not look quite as formidable a force as they did, stuttering of late, looking less aggressively confident than at the start of the season. But in Eto’o, Ronaldinho and Co they have the talent, if anyone does, to win the Champions League. — Â