Former Barca Players II - from Assulin to Zambrotta

Sad news, Larsson steps down as coach after his team's own "fans" verbally abuse him following a loss: https://www.balls.ie/football/henrik-larsson-leaves-helsingborg-verbal-abuse-fans-416203

 

Surprised I'm the first to post this as I saw it was news at least a day ago, but here's a fitting tribute to Samuel Eto'o, who they judge to be the best African born player ever: https://www.espn.com/soccer/uefa-ch...ost-outspokenvolatile-and-unstoppable-players

snippet from the end:
But be clear about this: with Eto'o's retirement European and African football have lost one of the most superb, talented, athletic, clever, charismatic, quixotic, hot-tempered, big-mouthed, entertaining and most "winning" players we have seen or are likely to.

Tennis star Rafa Nadal recently said: "People get confused about talent. Talent isn't striking the ball well, or very hard. Some play beautifully, some flawlessly, others run brilliantly. But in all sport the final objective is to win. So, in summary, the person who wins the most is the one with the most talent"

Rafa knows. Samuel Eto'o knew. What a talent, what a winner. Adios "Samu!"

 

More from just retired Eto'o but now it's all love for his former coach, Jose Mourinho (at Inter and Chelsea), who he would like to see at Barca: https://www.sport-english.com/en/ne...be-nice-if-mourinho-returned-to-barca-7631498

Both Eto'o, and Jose, and Tebas (Liga president) were at some Liga event and Tebas also mentioned how Jose would be good for La Liga: https://www.sport-english.com/en/news/laliga/tebas-having-mourinho-in-la-liga-would-be-big-7631634

 

Eto'o sure is speaking a bunch in retirement: https://www.sport-english.com/en/news/barca/samuel-etoo-ansu-fati-has-two-pairs-of-balls-7640535

Apparently he wants to coach, which is cool, but what is weird to me is that he claims to want to be the first coach of color to win the Champion's League: On coaching, he added: "I'm in Qatar with (Xavi), now I want to rest and enjoy time with my wife because I want to be the first coach of colour to win a Champons League and play with my teams like Guardiola played with his."

But Eto'o was coached by Rikjaard to win his first Champion's League
Now I know Rikjaard is Dutch, born in Amsterdam, but his father was Surinamese (South American former Dutch colony) and he was undoubtedly subjected to racism in his playing days given his skin color. Zidane, similarly, is French but both his parents are Algerians (African former French colony) but he is pretty light skinned. I suspect other CL winning coaches are also "of colour" but I guess it really depends what is meant by that? Dark skin? Not European? From Africa and specifically a Black African? 100%

Seems weird to say "first of colour to win CL" but either way it is great to hear Eto'o wants to coach. Also, Rikjaard was kind of tone deaf to racism, so maybe that leads to Eto'o not thinking of his former coach as being "of colour"?:

The Barcelona coach, Frank Rijkaard, took an astonishing stance on racism towards players yesterday, claiming that the more a player talks of the problem the worse it will get.

"The more you talk about it, the more you get the possibility that certain people will react on it," he said.

The former Dutch international, who is of Surinamese descent, said that black players should "get on with their work".

He equated abuse from the stands to songs about a player's individual characteristics. "If someone is quite tall the people will sing songs about his height. We don't have to overreact. You just have to do your job," Rijkaard said on Radio 5.

Rijkaard, who talked Samuel Eto'o out of leaving the pitch at Real Zaragoza in February after the Cameroon international suffered monkey chants, added: "The game's organisations - Fifa, Uefa, Premiership, Liga - have to take measures and I think it's being done right."

The Spanish FA fined Real Zaragoza just €9,000 (£6,000).