Born on this day is Sunderland legend Emmanuel Eboue who finished his glittering career at the Stadium of Light. He made no appearances for the Lads after he was suspended by Fifa from all football-related activity for a year.
Eboue, Eboue. We hardly knew ye. I always remember he looked pretty decent for Arsenal years ago and, in fact, Arsene Wenger concurred - in only his second season in London the manager compared Eboue to the great Brazilian Garrincha .That season he made his way into the first team, earning his starting position in the 2006 Champions League Final. Arsenal ended up losing the tie 2-1 to Barcelona.
After that season, Wenger started to mould Eboue into a right winger but his plans didn’t prove fruitful. He had several poor performances and had began getting booed by Arsenal fans which led to even more poor performances.
He eventually left London and England for that matter and went to Turkey to join Galatasaray. He managed to rack up some trophies to add to his so far empty cabinet, in Turkey he won three league titles, one league cup and three super cups.
His Galatasaray time ended poorly, he was left out of the squad for the final season of his contract and was forced to play with the under-21 squad due to the limit of foreign players in the senior squad. A man who seemed to leave teams in acrimonious circumstances exclusively was headed back to England with us. Once his contract was up he made a glorious move to Sunderland.
He signed a short deal with us, on March 9th in 2016, and then by the end of the month ,without even playing a game, he was suspended for a year for not paying his former agent. Sunderland then terminated his contract after the news emerged. At least he picked up two weeks wages though, it could help him pay off those debts.
Eboue also went through a divorce which he claimed is another reason for his financial woes. After his release from Sunderland he went on to speak to several publications to broadcast his issues.
After the one year ban, he tried to get back into football and attempted to agree terms with with several teams. He tried to join Hungarian side Ferencevaros but he couldn’t agree a contract with them. During a medical with a Cypriot side, there were issues with his blood and he didn’t play football professionally again.
The man once compared to Garrincha fell from grace. He played in two World Cups , a Champions League final and I'm sure I saw him warming up once at the Stadium of Light. He seemed like a bit of a character and the video of him pretending to understand the North Korean team's tactics always brings a smile to my face.
Emmanuel Adebayor suggested that Eboue's comedy antics were legendary: "He's funnier than some comedians on TV."
The former Arsenal striker said: "Sometimes when he eats, he puts food up his nose." Truly, a comedy genius. I can just picture Eboue, strands of spaghetti up his nose in the Sunderland canteen, receiving the news that his contract has been suddenly terminated due to his fiduciary troubles.
