NO SNEIJDER , NO XAVI : SAMUEL ETO'O NAMES BEST TEAMMATES , MESSI ASIDE

The football great has identified the best teammate he has ever played with apart from the Argentine superstar

Samuel Eto’o has named Cote d’Ivoire’s Yaya Toure as his greatest teammate aside from Lionel Messi, overlooking Wesley Sneijder and Xavi Hernandez, among others.

At Inter Milan, he combined well with Sneijder to help the Italian giants win a treble in the 2009-10 season, when they won the Champions League, Serie A and the Coppa Italia.

Xavi, now manager at Al Sadd, is often rated among the best Spanish players of all time.

However, Xavi, who was his teammate at Barcelona where they won a treble the season before, did not make the Cameroonian's cut.

Together at Camp Nou, Eto'o and Xavi won two Champions League titles, four La Liga, one Copa del Rey and two Supercopa de Espana titles.

Instead, he named four-time African Player of the Year Toure, who he believes is an unbelievable midfielder.

“Messi, Iniesta, Deco, Ronaldinho, Yaya Toure. It’s difficult to pick one. Apart from Messi? …Yaya Toure,” Eto’o told Goal.

Yaya also stood tall when the list was narrowed down to the finest to have come from Africa.

“Two of the greatest African players I’ve ever played with are Yaya Toure and Jay Jay Okocha,” he continued.

“He [Yaya] is an incredible central midfielder one of the very best that the world has seen, and I was lucky enough to play with him.


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“Also, Okocha from Nigeria. He is a fantastic footballer, what an enigma!”

Now one of the La Liga ambassadors, Eto’o is also the closest any African has come to winning the Ballon d'Or award since George Weah's triumph in 1995.

He finished third behind then Barcelona teammate Ronaldinho and Chelsea's Frank Lampard in the 2005 edition.