Eto’o was responding to criticism of his performances for his national team, from the former Cameroon striker Roger Milla.

The former Barcelona striker revealed that he is considering whether he should participate in the tournament: “Is it worth me going to the World Cup?”

“I still have a few days to think about it but I will see if my participation is important because I don’t need this in my career.”

“What has Milla done? He did not win the World Cup. They played in a quarter-final and with what a team.

“And you wonder, ‘are they my people?’. Are they really my people?”

The Cameroon skipper has scored 44 goals in 94 appearances for the Indomitable Lions and is hugely important to their World Cup campaign (Eto’o 33/1 to be the World Cup top scorer).

Eto’o is the record goalscorer in the African Nations Cup and comes into the World Cup off the back of a successful debut season for Inter Milan, in which they won the Champions League, Serie A and the Italian Cup.

Such achievements have not impressed Milla, who criticised Eto’o’s contribution for Cameroon: “For me, for the moment, Samuel still hasn’t brought anything to our national team.

“The people of Cameroon expect a lot of him at this World Cup, that he show his true face as he did at Barcelona or as he just did at Inter Milan.”

Milla scored 28 goals for Cameroon in his 102 appearances, between 1978 and 1994. He is best remembered for his exploits in the 1990 World Cup, where as a 38-year old he scored four goals, as Cameroon reached the quarter-finals of the competition.

The former Saint-Etienne and Montpellier star, defended his criticism of Eto’o: “I have a right to criticise things that aren’t going well in the country, in my national team, because I fought for this team to be where it is today.

“If I can’t criticise it then I don’t know who can. Now that he is captain, Samuel has to give a good example.”

Cameroon have been drawn in Group E of the World Cup, alongside Holland, Denmark and Japan.

Since the success of 1990, Cameroon have failed to progress from the group stages in 1994, 1998 and 2002, and did not qualify in 2006.

They are rated as contenders to emerge from Group E, but would surely struggle if they were to be without the services of the talismanic Eto’o.


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