Samuel Eto'o moved to Europe the year before Didier Drogba and Yaya Toure moved there a couple of years after Drogba.
Nice story, though.
Didier Drogba moved to france at the age of 5 to go to school. Eyebrows would have been raised if he was actually nine years old. he went home when he was 8. There are pictures of him when he is in school and he looks just like a normal 5 year old kid. lying about his age would have had the effect of pointlessly holding him back in school in case he became a footballer. And I know that Toure isn't from nigeria, but the point is the same situation applies throughout West Africa. The situation in the Ivory Coast is much more unstable than in nigeria, it would be even easier to obtain an inaccurate, but perfectly official document. And I don't know if the involvement of academies improves the situation. I would view someone who operates in that business with the highest suspicion. I have absolutely nothing against footballers from west africa, and given the rampant cheating in under-age gaa games I'm certainly not suggesting that this is an evil confined to africa. It's simply footballers looking to get every possible advantage they can get, as they try and make a career for themselves. I mean I would definitely do it given the opportunity and...
Either way, there are three things that are clear. The first is that he's played a lot of games over his career, he has a lot of miles on the clock, The second is that even at 29 he's no spring chicken and he's coming up to that age where power based midfielders start to pick up a lot of injuries. He's coming up to the age where Stevie G turned from a world class rampaging machine, into a player increasingly hampered by injuries, and struggling to regain form. And Thirdly they rely on him to too much, the only other two midfielders at their disposal are the rather agricultural Barry and De Jong. they rely an awful lot on just one player, In much the same way that they rely massively on kompany in defence. If these two players make it through the season unscathed, then everything will be great. If not, then....
This is what mancini is complaining about. He's looking at a bunch of strikers that he doesn't need, and to a certain degree can't stand. Adebayor, tevez and dzeko. He wants to swap them for another really good centre half, and a good central midfielder to help/cover for toure. But it's not going to happen. He can't get his way and now he's stamping his feet. He's going to insist on it. I wonder if he will get it.