SAMUEL
ETO'O

Barcelona 2008-09 was Guardiola's debut season at Camp Nou. The squad inherited from Frank Rijkaard, the new false-9 role for Lionel Messi, and the demand that Eto'o accept a wide-right role to accommodate Messi central — Eto'o agreed, the season produced La Liga (won at 87 points), the Copa del Rey (3-1 over Athletic Bilbao in the final, Messi and Eto'o both scoring) and the Champions League final on 27 May 2009 in Rome against Manchester United. Eto'o opened the scoring at 10 minutes, picking out the bottom corner from a tight angle; Messi added the second with a header at 70 minutes. Barcelona won 2-0. The treble was complete.

Inter Milan signed Eto'o in summer 2009 in a swap deal with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who went the other way to Barcelona, plus a reported EUR 49m. The 2009-10 season was Mourinho's second at Inter. Mourinho asked Eto'o to play as a defensive wide forward, tracking back to support Maicon on the right, dropping into midfield when out of possession, finishing centrally when chances came. Inter won Serie A by two points over Roma, won the Coppa Italia 1-0 over Roma in the final, and beat Bayern Munich 2-0 in the Champions League final at the Bernabeu on 22 May 2010 (Diego Milito scored both goals). Inter became the first Italian club to win a treble; Eto'o became the only player in football history to win consecutive trebles with two different clubs.

The double-treble has rarely been replicated. Pep Guardiola's Manchester City won their first treble in 2022-23 but did not chain a second the following year. The Barca-Inter axis of 2008-2010 is the only documented case of consecutive trebles at top-flight European football — and Eto'o is the central figure of both stories. The 2010 CAF African Footballer of the Year award, his fourth, was the inevitable recognition.

Eto'o made his Cameroon debut in 1997 at 16 and was the youngest player at the 1998 World Cup in France at 17 — a record he held until subsequent generations of teenage footballers broke it. His four World Cup appearances (1998, 2002, 2010, 2014) tie him with several Cameroonian peers for the country's record. The AFCON haul — winner in 2000 and 2002, runner-up in 2008, all-time AFCON top scorer with 18 tournament goals — is the more decorated international chapter.

AFCON 2000 in Ghana / Nigeria ended Nigeria 2-2 Cameroon (Cameroon won 4-3 on penalties) at Surulere Stadium in Lagos. Eto'o, then 19, scored from open play in the final. AFCON 2002 in Mali ended Cameroon 0-0 Senegal in the final at Stade du 26 Mars in Bamako, won 3-2 on penalties. The Sydney 2000 Olympic football gold-medal final ended Spain 2-2 Cameroon (Cameroon won 5-3 on penalties) — Africa's first football gold at the Olympics, with Eto'o on the squad alongside Geremi, Patrick Mboma and Marc-Vivien Foe.

The international career closed in 2014 after the group-stage World Cup exit in Brazil. Eto'o was at the time competing in Russian Premier League football at Anzhi and then Premier League football at Chelsea, but the Cameroon role was always central to his identity. The 2010 World Cup in South Africa, where Cameroon finished bottom of Group E with three defeats, is the lowest point of his international record; the AFCON 2000 / 2002 double + Olympic gold sit at the peak.

The 11 December 2021 presidential election saw Eto'o win 43 votes to 31 against the incumbent Seidou Mbombo Njoya. The platform was generational — Eto'o promised modernised governance, professionalised Elite One, infrastructure investment outside Yaounde and Douala, and a stronger Indomitable Lions pipeline. The election was endorsed by Cameroonian president Paul Biya. The early presidency installed Rigobert Song as national-team head coach in February 2022, with the explicit mandate of taking Cameroon to AFCON 2023 (held January 2024).

Cameroon were eliminated in the round of 16 of AFCON 2023 by Nigeria. Rigobert Song was dismissed on 29 February 2024. The replacement coaching appointment became the central crisis of the Eto'o presidency. In April 2024 the Cameroonian sports ministry, over FECAFOOT objections, appointed Belgian coach Marc Brys to the head-coach role. Eto'o publicly disputed the appointment, releasing statements through FECAFOOT challenging the ministry's authority. Brys and Eto'o conducted the 2024 calendar in open conflict — separate press conferences, contradictory squad selections, public denials of one another's authority. The dispute was carried in English, French and Cameroonian press through the AFCON 2025 cycle. Brys departed in 2025; David Pagou took the role.

On 24 September 2024 FIFA imposed a six-month ban on Eto'o from attending Cameroon international games following charges related to an incident at the 2024 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup match in Colombia between Brazil and Cameroon. FIFA did not publicly detail the specific nature of the breach beyond citing its disciplinary code. Eto'o remained FECAFOOT president throughout the ban; the ban ended in March 2025. The next FECAFOOT presidential election cycle is scheduled for late 2026 and will be the formal test of whether the credibility issues have damaged Eto'o's political standing within Cameroonian football.