Goodbye Samuel Eto'o, we now know who you are

The phone rings at dawn and, halfway between awake and asleep, the room is dimly lit by the light shining from the screen. While the room is still plunged into darkness, we open one eye while the other is still glued to the pillow. We reached out to retrieve the phone from the bedside table. An Instagram notification.

It’s Samuel Eto’o, wearing the Real Madrid shirt. Accompanied by another image with Real Madrid’s players at the Bernabeu. The message with the photos is an ode to Madridismo, congratulate them. 

"Bravo Real Madrid, the club where it all started for me, in their impressive victory last night." 

Suddenly, images embedded in the memory fly into the mind that, unexpectedly, have become sad and have lost their meaning, everything that related them to a state of cheerful and festive mood is gone. There is Samuel now, whom Barça made into what he is today, running down the wing with open arms after scoring against Arsenal in Paris. And what was a euphoric memory, has been transformed into a selfish moment and lacking any empathy to the shirt that he sweats for. 

With no time or energy to reminisce, we see Eto'o overtaking Van der Sar in Rome, running like a gazelle. A memory, once again, turning this second photograph gray, in which we would now like its protagonist to be someone else. Without time to assimilate it, the immortal hero has become flesh and blood and, what is worse, he no longer feels like one of our own. He appears distant, diffused and turned into a great lie, like that dream from which he has abruptly awakened us. 

Samuel has destroyed all the bonds created with those who trusted him, when those whom he now congratulates and recognises all their greatness turned their backs on him. Eto'o has chosen to be one more among many, a former footballer who, after winning it all dressed in Blaugrana, did not understand anything of what he was experiencing. We now know that his provocative chants were just noise without substance and under his cheap populism there was nothing. Emptiness. 

Goodbye, Samuel, it was nice while it lasted, but your words are too hard to understand and, above all, for you to understand the pain they cause in Barcelona. Sportsmanship is always welcome, the unforgivable thing is to erase your history at the Camp Nou with two photos. Goodbye, Samuel, we now know who you are.