Samuel Eto’o “The Home Breaker”?

The Cameroonian veteran striker has already gotten off to a spectacularly bad start as a Sampdorian player after a row with manager Sinisa Mihajlovic. The Coach accused Samuel Eto’o of showing a “serious lack of respect”, after he allegedly missed an extra training session without any justification or prior notice of the team.

Cameroonweb.com takes a look at some incidents of Eto’o’s acts of disrespect in his career from Real Madrid in 1997 to present.

Firstly, during his time at Barcelona under Frank Rijkaard, Eto'o refused to come on as a substitute in a league match against Racing de Santander on February 11, 2007. Eto’o’s team mate, Ronaldinho was not happy with Eto'o's actions accusing hi, of putting of not the team first.

A few months later, Eto'o said, "These kind of things are usually just speculation and don't come through to me. However, if it is true that I am a problem for my team then I will go.” Thanks to the intervention of Joan Laporta, there was calm in the squad.

On August 29,2004, during Barcelona festive party in the Camp Nou after their 2004–05 La Liga title triumph, Eto’o led the fans into singing, “Madrid, bastards, salute the champions.” This marred his relationship with the club that gave him his first professional football debut. He later apologized asking for forgiveness from Real Madrid.

The head of the Real Madrid fan club federation remained unimpressed, however, stating, "This character (Eto’o) is a fantastic player, but he leaves a lot to be desired as a person." Also, in his time at Anzhi Makhachkala, Roberto Carlos, team director of the club accused Eto’o of interfering with his work at the Russian club to the point that he considered quitting.

In an interview with newspaper Globo, Carlos said: He's a good person, but there is a part of him that thinks 'I, and not the group', which is really damaging.

'We talked about one thing, and then he went to the players and talked about another. Eto'o interfere with my work, control the club, taking my position and that of Guus Hiddink,( the coach). He did everything at Anzhi, except play football.”

In his last year at Barcelona under Pep Guadiola, the two were involved in a deep row with Eto’o accusing Guardiola of being a coward. 'Guardiola has never had the courage to say things in front of me. He passed by the players. Xavi told me they wanted me to stay but I had to talk to Pep. I said "Never, if you do not respect me, I do not respect you".

Eto’o goes further to say that he spoke to Guardiola on three occasions in his last season.“Pep told me how to move like a striker. I told him, "You're not normal!" The true story is that Pep didn't respect the things in football.'

At the national team level, under Coach Javier Clemente, Eto'o was accused of missing a training session and showing indiscipline to the Coach when the player disputed a substitution during the game.

He was also involved in a row with Alex Song when the pair didn’t shake hands before the AFCON qualifier against Senegal on June 4, 2011.

On December 16, 2011, Eto'o was suspended for fifteen games by Cameroon Football Federation, after the team refused to play a friendly against Algeria because they had not been paid promised bonuses.

This led to Frenchman Dennis Lavagne to call on FECAFOOT to make a decision on the captaincy. He refused to take the flag from Prime Minister, Philemon Yang’s hands before Cameroon’s departure to the World Cup in Brazil.

Eto’o has been blamed for the problems that have been plaguing the Cameroon football team since he was named skipper of the team in 2010. He has been accused for putting himself first before the group.