The Curious Case of a Certain Samuel Eto'o

This is the story of a lad who grew up playing football on the dusty streets of Douala.

A graduate of Cameroon's Kadji Sports Academy, Eto'o was swooped up by Spanish giants, Real Madrid at the tender age of 16, back in 1997.

He had hardly put on a Madrid shirt when he signed a permanent deal with Mallorca after an impressive loan spell at the club.

He became an instant hit with the Mallorca fans, scoring 70 goals in his time at the ONO Estadi, but when FC Barcelona came calling, Eto'o packed his bags and headed for the Nou Camp.

This inaugurated a rather peculiar love affair between the player and the Catalans, which has refused to die out.

Eto'o moved to Barca back in 2004 and has been a consistent goal scorer through out his time with the Catalan Giants but despite an undying passion for the club, he has often been charged of a rather sulking attitude problem.

Which reminds us of his infamous public outburst against Ronaldinho and Frank Rijkaard.

This 'problem of sorts' was highlighted when before taking over as manager of Barcelona, Josep Guardiola openly suggested that he wanted three players to be shown the Camp Nou door: Ronaldinho, Deco and Eto'o.

Ronaldinho left for AC Milan, Deco for Chelsea, but Eto'o stayed put because no convincing offers came in for him.

Hence, Guardiola was forced to swallow his pride and make the Cameroon forward, a part of his plans.

A season later, little has changed, Guardiola, apparently is still keen to let go of the player despite the fact that Eto'o scored a staggering 35 goals last season including one in the Champions League Final, helping the Catalans to sweep a glorious treble.

This brings out some rather mind boggling thoughts into one's mind.

Firstly, how and perhaps importantly, why does a club want to get rid of a man who has scored 130 goals for them in the last five seasons?

Secondly, how is it possible that no other "European" club wants to buy a striker with such a record?

Well, not unless you include Manchester City!

No disrespect to the Manchester City but since they are not part of either the UEFA Champions League or the Europa Cup (UEFA Cup), they can't exactly be called a European club, though, their geographic location suggests they are very much a part of the continent.

Eto'o was never to keen on moving to City and not heading out into such untested waters could prove to be a wise decision.

It will be fascinating to see how Manchester City can keep the likes of Roque Santa Cruz, Carlos Tevez, Robinho, Craig Bellamy, Felipe Caicedo, Valeri Bojinov, Benjani and Emmanuel Adebayor happy together!

Samuel Eto'o, though, seems set for a move to Serie A Champions, Inter Milan after their President, Massimo Moratti expressed interest in bringing the forward to the San Siro in a deal which could possibly involve Zlatan Ibrahimovic moving the other way.

He might not be in Josep Guardiola's good book but as long as he can keep on finding the back of the net, the future of Samuel Eto'o appears quite bright.