Player Profile: Samuel Eto’o - Part 2
After signing the deal, he started featuring as a regular and managed to score 11 goals as he also began to attract attention from other league teams. He at that time told the media that he was loving Mallorca’s style of play and wanted to feature for the
club more often. In the last match of Copa del Rey, his team was playing against Recreativo Heuvla and the year was 2003. The Cameroonian striker managed to score 2 goals in the 3-0 win that his team achieved there.
Eto’o then left Mallorca after scoring 54 goals for the club which was the highest number of goals scored by any player at Mallorca at that time. In 2004, he signed with one of the biggest clubs in La Liga, Barcelona. The transfer fee was 24 million Euros.
Samuel made his debut for Barcelona against Racing Santander on August 29th 2004. Barcelona won that match and also the La Liga title that year and it was Eto’o who managed to slap Real Madrid. Later, Eto'o and the legendary Argentinean, Lionel
Messi signed with the club.
Even though he missed out on the Pichichi trophy- the title that is given to the top scorer of La Liga- it was Samuel Eto’o who overran the Valencia striker, David Villa as he found the net more than any other La Liga player. He scored 26 goals in one season
and his last goal came off against Athletic Bilbao.
Eto’o also contributed to the six goals that Barcelona scored in the 2005-2006 Champions League in which they actually won the final match. In the final of 2006 UEFA Champions League, Arsenal’s goalkeeper, Jens Lehmann was sent off early as he brought down
the Cameroonian right outside the 18 yard box.
However, it was the North London side, Arsenal that managed to surprise the Spanish giants by scoring the first goal of the game and eventually later on, Samuel Eto'o came forward and scored his goal to bring the teams on level terms. Barcelona went on to
win the match 2-1. Later that season, Samuel won the UEFA Forward of the Year award.
In the same year, the Cameroonian won the third African Player of the Year award in a row apart from coming third in the FIFA World Player of the Year award contest. The next season started badly for him and he was the one who found himself sidelined because
of his meniscus injury that he suffered during Barcelona’s Champions’ League group stage match against Werder Bremen. This injury kept him out for 5 months and he had a surgery to make conditions better.
Samuel Eto’o had then told his team that he did not want to come on against Racing Santander on 11th of February 2007. It was because the attacking maestro thought that he wasn't really "ready" to play yet. However, Barcelona's number 10 back
then, Ronaldinho claimed that the striker wasn't putting up the team as his number one priority.
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