Laporta never wanted to sell Eto'o

In an interview with Catalan sports paper Sport, Barcelona president Joan Laporta looked back at the whole transfer story regarding Barcelona forward and Cameroonian international Samuel Eto'o (27) who was on the verge of leaving the club this summer.




One of the soap operas of the summer was the possible transfer of Samuel Eto'o. You're having the feeling that you have a time bomb in the dressing room?
No, I again see a motivated Eto'o who adds his fighting spirit to the group. He's a non-conformist and he brings energy and ambition to the team. Samuel has refound his motivation. At the end of last season we were disappointed and he also was. Now it's another guy. He saw that we have built a group who is hungry for victories. We don't want him to change. He has a a lot of character and personality.

But the club was looking for an exit...
Stop right there! I never believed we were. We have given a last chance to Rijkaard, to Deco and to Ronaldinho. But we never gave one to Samuel. The circumstances were different. He has suffered injuries during the last two years and he had difficulties finding the rhythm. Despite that, he kept on scoring when he returned. What happened with Samuel was caused by a coming together of circumstances which we didn't control.

What do you mean by that?
With Samu we didn't have the same calm and reasonable exit talks that we had with Deco or Ronaldinho. Everything was less concrete. Because of that, I think we were just assuming that we needed to renew the squad. And then you're automatically thinking about the most decisive players, like Ronaldinho, Deco and Eto'o. The situation of Samuel has always been somehwhat vague, also due to a series of misunderstandings, because we didn't really want to sell him and he didn't want to leave. And then he convinced us during the pre-season.

And...
If you want to sell a player or he wants to leave, that will happen. And if it doesn't happen, that's because the will of the two parties to make it happen isn't strong enough. I've always thought that he was a very useful player and that it was very difficult to find a substitute on the market.

So why was vice president Ingla in London trying to buy Adebayor?
If you try to compare Eto'o with Adebayor, a player who starts looking good, there's just no comparison possible. Berbatov? Incomparable to what Eto'o offers. Drogba? Incomparable because of the age difference. Benzema? He has a good present and an even better future but he still has to develop. Cristiano Ronaldo? I prefer Eto'o. In every possible change, we would have ended up losing if, and only if, you can count on a motivated Eto'o who has recovered from his injuries. If he would have been angry and demotivated, we would no way have kept him. But when Eto'o is involved, there's no better player. A while ago I passed him and I wanted to talk with him but he didn't have time because he wanted to arrive in time to avoid a fine and to follow the rules of Guardiola.

And so you were looking for other players for just in case...
If he would have forced his way out, we need to have an alternative goal scorer. We sincerely never had things clear. There was something that cause us being cautious.

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