9 - Samuel Eto'o

[yusuf]

well i thought pep just hated eto but seeing how he handled ibra and just after 1 season tends to support the theory that he has trouble with big personalities but he is still 1 of you youngest managers and has tons of time to learn but i see what you mean i hated eto leaving and was against ibra leaving on strictly footballing terms.

 

[mobster_1930]

We can't tell that letting Eto'o was a bad move, because we won La Liga and made far in the CL, but that deal with Ibra + 40mil. € makes this tranfer probably the worst in the history of all football transfers. We lost Eto'o and 40mil€ along the way. Eto'o is great player, better than Ibra will ever be, but i think that letting him go was a good move. Change is sometimes good when everything is going well. It's early to judge, but his incredible start doesn't mean that Inter will win it all again. Wait till may next year.

 

[Barcaman]

Actually, it's 50 mil., not 40 (49,5 to be exact). Plus 12 mil. annual wage.
And Eto already won it all again last season with Inter so what else does he need proving? Maybe being a top scorer with Inter. And he is doing it right now, as he is finally playing in his natural position.

 

[Trillske]

Few players have made me change my mind so much.
For me, Eto was allways very one dimensional. Suddenly he was excellent as SS/AM. He was allways only "a good striker", but no remarkable qualities. The way he uses his speed has definatly proved me wrong there. A lof of players have the speed, but I´ve seen few ever control it like he does. In offense, yes, but where he is really unique is in pressing. He can shake a whole teams buildup by himself.

And for me, he was somewhat of the typical spoiled striker dickhead.
Then he goes to Inter for a deal where he really is pretty much publicaly humiliated, dealing out no more than a few pretty mild remarks in the press. Keeps his head down, accepts a role a bit more in the shadows than he is used too, and works his ass of, right up to the top again.

I´d be impressed no mather what player or person it was, but reason Im so thrilled is that he proved me so wrong. Knew he would score in Inter, but never knew his goals would only be a bonus.

 

[Metaphysical]

Maybe you overlooked (I did) that Zlatan is a similair breed to Messi, in that they both need that enormous freedom to figure out for themselves what path they want to run in, where they want to help, and what is about to happen. I see even Messi, dispite his incredible consistance, often gets lost in games when he doesnt have that freedom.

I didn't overlook it.

I just figured zlatan would want to win enough and be adaptable enough to adjust his game to work with messi's.

he wasn't. that was his downfall.

That probably has a lot to do with ego, a quality he shares with Eto, and one I think is pretty normal for a striker. Zlatans ego probably has tougher to deal with it because he has proven he is actually not a very good striker without the freedom. Eto performed better in an "invisible" role (didnt distrupt the flow around him).
It doesnt have much to do with "douchebag" however. If you´d ask Pep over a friendly cup of coffe, maybe he´d say they shared that quality too, though.

eto'o worked better wide, but he was never happy with it and openly criticised pep and acted out on the fucking pitch when he "proved pep wrong" by scoring vs. betis.

Unbelievable striker-brilliant. Pep is a useless manager when it comes to handling BIG personalities. He couldnt handle Ibra(understandable but stil......)had difficulties with Eto and shipped him off. Who next-Villa?? Part of being a good manager is learning how to deal with different personalities. Not every pl,ayer is going to be a humble, diffident nice guy. Especially when they're on 100K a week. Seriously I know Pep has won us trophies but he still has a lot to learn as a manager and he doesnt seem to be a quick learner. No plan for the parked bus and no ability to handle difficult players.

regarding pep's failure to handle "big personalities" - if you mean he can't (or doesn't want to) have douchebags in the squad then I really don't see why that's a negative.

the only reason to tolerate temperamental douchebags like eto'o and zlatan is if they are a key footballing element of your side and can't be replaced. like how united tolerated CR because he was such a devastating attacking option, ditto inter and zlatan, etc.

if you can build a team of great players who are also good people (and la masia really helps in that regard), there's no reason to compromise to include a "big personality" in the squad. ship them out and get someone in who will do the job without acting out like a petulant child. like I said, zlatan really should have curbed his ego to fit in with barca, but he wouldn't change so pep moved him on as well. now we have villa, who we all know is a great guy and will do the same job eto'o did without acting out.

anyway, enough of this "big personality" euphamistic bollocks. pique is a big personality. dani is a big personality. samu and zlatan are douchebags.

 

[Barcaman]

Ibra is a douchebag. He had zillion of examples of acting like one while Eto only had few (and even the saintliest of them like Keita had some). So if you wanted to put Eto and Ibra in the same basket, you failed.

 

[yusuf]

nah samu is a big personality just like dani and pique but he is not a douchebag.

 

[putogusiluz8]

I can't deny that when I see him scoring like that I feel jealousy. A part of me still sees him as a Barca player. oh samu

 

[G.J]

One year after the club didn't offer him a fair increase like they did to Xavi, Messi and Iniesta. Eto had to declare his love for the club only for them to offer him an insulting extension through text message. Who was to blame for his exit is fairly obvious.

You mean when he said Barca was only a job to him. Eto'o for all his professional attitude was always a two-faced man.

Bottom line is Pep had to make a decision and take the risk. After 2006 we could have sold ronaldinho for 100 mil. We didnt and the following 2 years were epic failures. He wanted fresh faces to keep that hunger to avoid a similar downfall. Eto'o at inter, had something to prove, at Barca he didnt. At the end of the day we won trophies and with a little luck we could have been in Madrid. There is no point on dwelling on what could have been every time Samuel scores for God sake.

Ibra is a douchebag. He had zillion of examples of acting like one while Eto only had few (and even the saintliest of them like Keita had some). So if you wanted to put Eto and Ibra in the same basket, you failed.

well we're talking about their Barca careers. Surely Pep took into consideration his lovely hissy fits in the Rijkaard era.

 

[Barcilliant]

If anything Ibra was a world class douchebaG. Fucker wanted a certain role in the team and when he didnt get it started playing up. I still feel we should have kept Ibra and Pep could have tried to find the ideal combo but Ibra the coward wanted out and we're left with a pretty one dimensional attack. We have become too Messi-centric at the moment. If he's not there we lose 25% straight away.

I love Eto's determination, hunger and will to win. Was a total pro and loved Barca. Pep wanted him out and he was booted out unfairly. Looking back Forlan would have been my choice instead of Ibra. Villa was my first choice but I would have taken Forlan any day over Ibra. Forlan isnt scared of shooting either-something which for some strange reason alot of Barca players are reluctant to do.

Pep's "feelings" are very expensive indeed. I have a feeling tight fisted Rossell must have told him that he didnt want any more expensive flops-Chiggy was yet another Pep flop.

 

[Metaphysical]

You mean when he said Barca was only a job to him. Eto'o for all his professional attitude was always a two-faced man.

Bottom line is Pep had to make a decision and take the risk. After 2006 we could have sold ronaldinho for 100 mil. We didnt and the following 2 years were epic failures. He wanted fresh faces to keep that hunger to avoid a similar downfall. Eto'o at inter, had something to prove, at Barca he didnt. At the end of the day we won trophies and with a little luck we could have been in Madrid. There is no point on dwelling on what could have been every time Samuel scores for God sake.

well said.

well we're talking about their Barca careers. Surely Pep took into consideration his lovely hissy fits in the Rijkaard era.

he had a hissy fit under pep too (in february, as always), and let's not forget when he openly disobeyed pep against betis by staying central instead of allowing messi to go there. then when he scored a deflected shot he ran over to pep to rub it in his face. I mean that was an IMMENSE display of petulance.

I love samu, but the revisionism going on over here is nuts.

 

[Barcafan 2304]

We can't tell that letting Eto'o was a bad moveQUOTE]

I think we can have a very good guess at it though. Given the monies paid for Ibra and how it panned out, id say its fair enough to suggest it wasnt the greatest deal in our history given that Eto'o is still performing very well for a major Champions League adversary

 

[Psychaz]

so he has hissy fits, when he was scoring 20+ goals a season i couldnt care less what he was like off the field, i'd take him back in a heartbeat

 

[Barcaman]

nah samu is a big personality just like dani and pique but he is not a douchebag.

Exactly.

 

[Sodamnsmooth]

That feeling Pep had is called racism.

It's a shame he doesn't care about black people. Keita is next. He won't stop until he has nothing but Messi and 10 other Catalan players.