09.11.2008 11:40
An unstoppable goalscorer
Roger Bogunyà
Eto'o added four more goals to his account against Valladolid on Saturday, further ratifying his amazing form this season.
With these four goals, and ahead of Sunday’s results, Samuel Eto'o is the leading scorer in
the Spanish championship, with 13 goals in 10 games. Oddly enough, no fewer than seven of those
goals have come in the first halves of the last two home fixtures, three goals in 23 minutes
against Almería and four in 44 minutes against Valladolid.
Good starts
But it should come as no surprise that Eto'o has started the season in
such strong fashion. In his first two seasons at the club, 2004/05 and 2005/06, he scored nine
goals in the first ten games.
In the next two seasons his progress was interrupted by injury, but even so he scored eight
and ten goals respectively in the first ten league games. This year he has set a career high of 13
goals in the first ten outings.
Ahead of Luis Enrique and Zaldúa
Those four goals against Valladolid
(6-0)
move him up to eleventh position in the all-time goalscoring charts for the club. The
Cameroonian has now scored 110 times in 162 official Barça matches, and in one sweep he has
overtaken Zaldúa (107) and Luis Enrique (109), and should soon surpass Eulogio Martínez (111) and
Basora (112) too.
Since Kluivert
The last person to bag four goals in the same game for Barcelona was Patrick Kluivert back in
the 2001/02 season. On February 2 the Dutch striker scored four away to Tenerife in just 25 minutes
of the second half, a game Barça eventually won 6-0.
Four-goal heroes
Eto'o thus joins the unique list of players to have the honour of being on target four times for
Barça in the same game. Until the 1950s, when high scores were more normal than they are now,
scoring four was a fairly common feat, but since then very few players have managed such an
achievement. Barça’s four-goal heroes are the following.
César: 5 times (Oviedo (2), Zaragoza (2) and R. Sociedad)
A. Martin: 2 times (Sabadell and Granada)
Stoichkov: 2 times (Ath. Club and Albacete)
Ventolrà: 1 time (Real Madrid)
Kubala: 1 time (Granada)
Monaguillo: 1 time (Espanyol)
Marcos A.: 1 time (Espanyol)
Pereda: 1 time (Murcia)
Zaballa: 1 time (Deportivo)
Seguer: 1 time (Sevilla)
Basora: 1 time (Zaragoza)
Tejada: 1 time (R. Sociedad)
Moreno: 1 time (Atlético Madrid)
Kluivert: 1 time (Tenerife)
Eto'o: 1 time (Valladolid)
The record number of goals for Barça in a League match was Kubala’s seven in against
Nàstic in a 10-1 win. However, several Barcelona players have scored five in a game, such as
Clarés, E. Martínez, Navarro, Krankl and Kubala himself.