It is always hard to look past a team that has Samuel Eto'o in the side in a major final. Since he first made his name as a senior international, Eto'o, whose Inter Milan take on Bayern Munich tomorrow night for the title of Europe's club champions, has been collecting trophies at a rate of almost one-and-a-half per year. And seldom in those triumphs has he passed incognito.
At 19-years-old, Eto'o was part of a Cameroon team which defied a raucous crowd in Lagos, Nigeria to win his first African Cup of Nations in 2000, beating the hosts in the final. He scored the first goal. That summer he won an Olympic gold medal, he and his young countrymen defeating Spain. Eto'o scored the goal that took the final to penalties. Two years later, his Cameroon successfully defended their African title. A year after that, Eto'o heroically spearheaded Real Mallorca to a historic triumph in Spain's Copa del Rey.
These were simply the appetisers, preludes to the seven years in which Eto'o has put down a legitimate claim to be the most consistently brilliant and effective centre-forward in world football over the past decade. Once he had joined Barcelona in 2004, the silverware came to him in cascades: successive Primera Liga titles in his first two seasons at Barca; Spanish Super Cups in both. Then the monopoly on trophies of his farewell year, 2008/09, in Catalonia: another Copa del Rey, another Primera Liga, a second Champions League to add to his and Barcelona's 2006 win in the world's most admired club competition.
You can now include in the list the Serie A title and the Coppa Italia, captured in his first 10 months with Inter. And you could add a couple of footnotes to his rack of medals too: the teenaged Samuel Eto'o was on the staff of Real Madrid when they won the Champions League in 1998 and 2000. But Eto'o spent his time at Real on the margins, which is why the venue for tomorrow's Champions League final provides another reason for believing Eto'o will finish on the winning side, perhaps with a goal to his name.
Real never gave the young Eto'o a real chance in their first-team after they talent-spotted him as a 15-year-old in West Africa. In the colours of Mallorca and of Barca, he would persistently remind them of their error of judgement. He scored 11 goals against Real while in Spain, many of them at the Bernabeu. In short, he is what coaches call The Big Game Player, the man for heavyweight finals. In both his Champions League finals, he has scored the first goal for Barcelona: when they came back from 1-0 down against Arsenal in Paris four years ago and when they defeated Manchester United 2-0 in Rome 12 months ago. Should Inter beat Bayern Munich, Eto'o will stride into history, only the fourth footballer to win two successive Champions League finals, along with Marcel Desailly (Marseille and Milan, 1993 and 94), Paulo Sousa (Juventus and Borussia Dortmund, 1996 and 97) and Gerard Pique (Manchester United and Barcelona, 2008 and 09)
As Eto'o reflects on the many garlands, he has no hesitation in identifying the one he savoured most: guiding little Mallorca to victory in the Spanish Cup final: "My greatest achievement," he says, with sincerity, "because we were a small club and had never won anything". The defiance of that triumph suited his character. He adds: "My life has never been easy. I have always had to fight for things. Nothing comes free."
Eto'o has always had a streak of indignation about him and he has a point to make to his last employers, the Barcelona whom his Inter defeated in the semi-finals to seal their appointment with Bayern. Barcelona told Eto'o, their leading scorer they no longer wanted him at the end of last season. He moved to Inter as Zlatan Ibrahimovic and some ?45million (Dh202.5m) went the other way. Who came out of the deal best?
"I don't know," he told reporters last week, "but the clubs involved will have a good idea. I'm happy where I am. I can't answer whether Ibrahimovic is or not. I have had the chance to win things with Inter and I still have a chance to win something else on Saturday." sports@thenational.ae
