Barca fans confident Ibrahimovic will do even better than Eto’o

MADRID - Most fans of European champions Barcelona seem to be confident that new signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic can do even better at the Camp Nou than Samuel Eto’o, the man that he has replaced.

An online poll taken by Catalan sports daily Mundo Deportivo - in which 82,574 votes had been recorded by Tuesday - shows that 57 per cent of readers believe that Ibrahimovic can “improve upon the performance of Eto’o”.

Ibrahimovic, 27, was welcomed to Barcelona on Monday by around 55,000 euphoric fans in the Camp Nou, in the best attended presentation in the club’s history.

The bad news for the Barca fans is that the Swedish striker has arrived from Inter Milan with a broken bone in his left hand and will have to undergo an operation on Tuesday, which means that he will not be able to make his Barca debut until late August.

Ibrahimovic is Barca’s most expensive ever signing. They have paid around 46 million euros (65.49 million dollars) for him to Inter, plus Eto’o and the loan of Alexander Hleb for one season.

Ibrahimovic said during his presentation that “I am not the substitute for Eto’o, I am different.”

And Barca coach Josep Guardiola last week defended his decision to swap Eto’o for Ibrahimovic by saying that the latter “will offer us different things”.

Guardiola has sufficient credit at the Camp Nou - after leading Barca to a historic “treble” of Liga, cup and Champions in his very first season as coach - that he has hardly taken any criticism at all for offloading Eto’o, who scored more than 130 goals for Barca in his five tempestuous seasons at the Camp Nou.

Guardiola tried to get rid of Eto’o a year ago but had to let the Cameroonian stay when no serious offers for him came in. Eto’o then helped Barca to the “treble” with 35 goals in all competitions, but nonetheless failed to win Guardiola’s approval.

Last week Guardiola said, somewhat enigmatically, that Eto’o was leaving “not for football reasons, but due to reasons of ‘feeling’.”

Few Spaniards doubt Ibrahimovic’s charisma and talent, but some followers of La Liga are sceptical as to whether he - top scorer in Italy last season with 25 goals - will put away the same quantity of goals as Eto’o.

Madrid sports paper Marca has an online poll asking “Will Ibrahimovic surpass the number of goals scored last season by Eto’o”.

By Tuesday 31,065 readers had voted, with only 35 of them opting for “Yes”.