“I still can’t believe he played for us.”
It’s perhaps the most often-used line when Evertonians look back at Samuel Eto’o’s time at Goodison Park, after the striker joined the Toffees on this day seven years ago.
Everton had signed a true bona fide superstar. A giant of African football and a hugely decorated player after an illustrious career with Barcelona, Real Madrid and Inter, this was a played who had played in some of the biggest games in history. Champions League finals, LaLiga title deciders, treble triumphs in Italy.
And now, he was lining up for Everton to add a gargantuan amount of quality to a Roberto Martinez side who had just achieved a club record Premier League points tally, cruelly missing out on Champions League football by a single standing.
Blues were licking their lips at the prospect of the experienced and supremely gifted Eto’o, who arrived after a season with Chelsea, leading the line with the powerful and goal hungry Romelu Lukaku.
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The Cameroon icon was one of the most and recognisable players on the planet. He was football glitz and glamour and so it was easy to find oneself watching him casually jogging up and down the Goodison Road touchline.
That’s Samuel Eto’o, he’s here, in an Everton tracksuit. This was a man who had played in Madrid and Barcelona, now warming up on a chilly lunchtime in Walton.
‘He really plays for us’.
It was only after a few minutes you would realise you hadn’t actually been watching what was occurring on the pitch, so transfixed had you been on Samuel Eto’o. The Samuel Eto’o.
That’s not to say he was too big a star for Everton but where he had been in football terms, it was a world away from what a generation of Blues had grown up with.
Eto’o was ‘Mes que un club’ along with Ronaldinho and Lionel Messi at the Nou Camp. He helped define European football’s stunning appeal at the start of the century.
Now though, having played with one majestic talent with a wand of a left foot, he was playing with another in Leighton Baines.
However, the fact his brace at Burnley’s Turf Moor is probably best remembered for the actions of another of his team-mates perhaps proves Eto’o’s Everton career didn’t go as we’d have liked.
The frontman scored a brilliant header on the run, before unleashing an exquisite strike from distance for his second. It was Steven Naismith’s boot of the ball straight after which sticks in the mind of most Blues though.
Celebrating, the Scottish forward followed up and wellied the bouncing ball back at the goal but inadvertently cannoned it off the crossbar and down on the head of poor Clarets keeper Tom Heaton who was already lying dejected on the ground.
Eto’o also impressed at home against former club Chelsea on his debut. For the few who are still filtering through the turnstiles as Z Cars blares out of the speakers, Everton will have been two down by the time they got to their seats. The hosts were two behind after three minutes and trailed 5-2 when want-to-be talisman Eto’o came off the bench.
He duly delivered, firing in with his first touch and grabbing the ball from the net, waving and urging his team-mates on as he hurried back to the centre-circle. A minute later, Ramires put the west Londoners 6-3 up.
Besides that consolation and the goals at Burnley, his other most memorable performance came in the club’s 2014 Christmas video - wearing an Everton jumper, the inquisitive cheeky look he gave the camera whilst sat in a cosy festive setting around the tree and presents, stole the show.
It was not a comfortable spell. Not for the player, not for the club.
Senior figures at Goodison, the Echo reported in 2018, had urged caution when talks opened between Martinez and Eto’o, saying that high profile players – whatever their age - would not accept sitting on the bench.
That warning was warranted.
Eto’o could not deal with being on the bench and felt he had too much quality to not be utilised and it seems he started to make life difficult for manager Martinez, the man he previously claimed had helped him fall in love with Everton.
A substitute against QPR in December having played against Manchester City a week earlier, he refused to warm up and stayed sat down, bellowing: “I am Eto’o. I am Eto’o”.
After some words of encouragement, he eventually played the final 13 minutes of a 3-1 win.
Then there were also suggestions he had undermined his coach by trying to lead a half-time team talk.
Alas, five months and a day after he beamed for the cameras holding aloft his number five shirt - another quirk of a surreal move - he had left to join Serie A side Sampdoria.
Sadly for Evertonians, Eto’o’s time with the Toffees shares parallels with James Rodriguez. Another standout idol of the game, it is sometimes hard for supporters to grasp that the 2014 World Cup Golden Boot winner plays for the Blues.
Like the former Barca star, James’ time with the club may be shortlived too and he could depart in this final week of the transfer window, with most Evertonians never seeing him wear the shirt due to the global pandemic stopping them from supporting the team.
The hope among the majority of fans is that the Colombian stays. However, any wishes to keep Eto'o back in 2015 were futile. and he was out the door sharpish.
However, despite his swift exit from Goodison, the veteran star has talked fondly of the club.
“Honestly, signing for Everton was one of the best decisions I’ve ever taken,” he said in an interview with the club in 2019. “My Everton debut has to be a good memory, your first match for a famous club.”
“The Everton fans are amazing, they are just incredible,” says Eto’o. “One of the best sets of supporters in England.
“In terms of the Club’s potential, it is not just what I believe or think. They are actually moving in an upward direction.”
Speaking of his decision to leave, he revealed: “I had another offer and I wasn’t featuring too much at Everton, so I went to speak to the gaffer, saying that for a player like me, I would have liked the chance to enjoy more playing time.
“I had less and less time left in the game. I was very happy with Everton but I had the chance to go and play in another league and enjoy my football a bit longer.”
After only 18 games at Stadio Luigi Ferraris, Eto'o went on to play in Turkey, where he even had a month-long spell as interim manager with Antalyaspor, and Qatar.
Looking back, he had hoped his time with the Blues had lasted longer.
“I was disappointed to be at Everton for only a short period,” says Eto’o. “When I came, I knew I was joining another big club, no doubt.
“I had played a lot at all my previous clubs and managed to entertain the fans, while achieving a lot of different things.
“But at Everton, even though I played in a few games, I don’t think the fans ever saw the real Samuel Eto’o.”
Maybe we didn’t get to see the real Eto’o, but for a generation of fans who always admired his quality from a distance, the treat of watching him in royal blue is still a memory which will last a lifetime.
