Eto'o: Mourinho is one of the best people in football

Posted Friday, September 13, 2019 by Marca.com

Eto'o, Tebas and Mourinho attended a Livescore event in Madrid.

Samuel Eto'o regards Jose Mourinho among the nicest men in football.

Two former enemies during their respective Barcelona and Real Madrid days ended up becoming the closest of acquaintances during their time together at Inter.

The Cameroonian explained his admiration of the Portuguese coach.

"I am tired of having to justify that this man [Mourinho] is one of the best people who exist in the world of football," Eto'o said during the presentation of LiveScore's partnership with LaLiga.

"When I said I was retiring, the first person who wrote to me was Mourinho. The first," he said.

"People have to know that many times life is not fair. And football is like life. And those who deserve to have people's respect sometimes don't have that recognition.

"This guy: we would for him," he said of Mourinho.

Eto'o went on to describe how Mourinho went from someone he loathed to admired.

"When I was at Barcelona and we were playing against Chelsea, it was not us against the players, it was us against Mou, and that gave us more motivation.

"And then when I was lucky enough to be in [Mourinho's} hands, nobody was expecting us to win the Champions League.

"I remember his talk before Stamford Bridge because he gave us all the details. He told us:

"You have to win for everyone, but especially for me. We had a very strong group, it was more than football: a family that this man came to create," Eto'o stated.

When asked about VAR, Eto'o feels that is helpful for the game.

"It allows us to have a cleaner football," said the former Barcelona man.

"We have all accepted it.

"I suffered in the last World Cup with Cameroon against England," he noted.

Mourinho agreed with the striker about VAR's effectiveness and feels it is a matter of getting used to its implementation.

"I like the essence of VAR. It eliminates human error.

"Now we have to adapt and learn to control our emotion as a result of VAR.

"The first thing I used to do [after a goal] was to look at the linesman.

"What we have to look at today is if they go to the screen. A stadium with 80,000 people waiting to see if it is a goal or not.

"That is a different way of controlling emotion: it is the new emotion," Mourinho stated.