Name |
Samuel Etoo |
Height |
5 ft 11 in |
Naionality |
Cameroonian |
Date of Birth |
10-March-1981 |
Place of Birth |
Douala, Cameroon |
Famous for |
Football Player |
Samuel Etoo is a Cameroonian footballer who plays as a striker for Russian team Anzhi Makhachkala. Eto'o trained at Kadji Sports Academy. He also holds a Spanish passport, enabling him not to count among the "foreign players" working in the European Union. Eto'o is believed to be, at the present moment, the highest earning footballer in the world, at £350,000 per week under his current contract.
Eto'o earned his first cap with Cameroon one day before his 16th birthday on 9 March 1997, in a 5–0 friendly loss to Costa Rica. In 1998, he was the youngest participant in the 1998 FIFA World Cup when he appeared in a 3–0 group stage loss to Italy on 17 June 1998, at the age of 17 years and three months. Eto'o scored his sole goal of the 2002 World Cup when he netted the game-winner against Saudi Arabia during the group stage on 6 June 2002, which was Cameroon's only win of the competition. Eto'o was a part of the squads that won the 2000 and 2002 Africa Cup of Nations, and was a gold medalist at the 2000 Summer Olympics. At the 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup, in which Cameroon finished as runners-up, he scored his only goal in a 1–0 group-stage upset of Brazil on 19 June. Cameroon were eliminated in the quarter-finals of the 2006 Africa Cup of Nations after Eto'o missed the decisive penalty in a 12–11 penalty shootout loss to Côte d'Ivoire following a 1–1 draw, but he nonetheless finished as the top scorer of the tournament with five goals. He missed a team practice before the quarter-finals to attend the CAF African Footballer of the Year award ceremonies in Togo. On 1 December 2009, Eto'o finished fifth in voting for the Ballon d'Or, which was won by his former Barcelona teammate Lionel Messi.
On 19 June 2010, Eto'o scored a goal in Cameroon's 2010 World Cup group stage match against Denmark, from a mistake by Christian Poulsen. Cameroon eventually lost the game 2–1 and was eliminated from the World Cup. Eto'o described it as the biggest disappointment of his career. In December 2010, Eto'o became the first man to be named African Player of the Year for a fourth time. On 16 December 2011, Eto'o was suspended for fifteen games by the Federation Camerounaise de Football, after the team refused to play a friendly against Algeria earlier this year. The ban was reduced to eight months in January 2012, meaning Eto'o will only miss four competitive matches. The change was brought about after Cameroon president Paul Biya asked officials to reconsider the controversial sanction.