ETOO

Samuel Eto’o arrived in Madrid as a sixteen-year-old. Real Madrid loaned him to Leganés in the summer of 1997, to join a team coached by Pedro Braojos that had achieved its best-ever finish in Segunda División the previous season. Alongside him were players like Catanha, Llorens, Alfredo, and Mesas, with whom he would form a special friendship.

Wearing the number 11, he made his debut as a white-and-blue on August 30, 1997, at the Luis Rodríguez de Miguel, in a 1-0 victory against Eibar, starting the match and playing 51 minutes. His first goal came shortly after, on September 10 at Vallecas in a Copa del Rey match. During that year, he scored three more goals in the league against Toledo, Albacete, and Logroñés.

Eto’o was part of the historic starting eleven that inaugurated Butarque on February 14, 1998, against Xerez. The last of the thirty matches he played as a Leganés player was in Toledo on May 9. That year, Leganés finished mid-table, and Eto’o began to rise as a footballer, later moving on to Real Madrid, Espanyol, Mallorca, Barcelona, Inter, Chelsea, and Everton. The rest of his story needs no introduction.

Samuel Eto’o has always carried Leganés in his heart and has shown his affection for the club whenever he could. In 2014, he sent a message of encouragement from London ahead of the promotion play-offs to Segunda: “It was one of the best stages of my life. There I met one of the best people I have known in football, Pepe Mesas, and we are still friends to this day.”