If Eto'o has such a winning mentality then why isn't it him with 8 league wins in a row?
Because football isn't an individual sport?Your logic says that Gary Neville was a far better player than Maradona.
Ibra only played 25 games from start out of the 68 games Ajax played during their two gold seasons.But I'm pretty sure his "winning mentality" was crucial
for Ajax gold medals.He surely won the championships for Ajax spending a lot more than half the time on the bench or in the stands.
I'm going through all Serie A and CL stats from 2000 (have just finished 2005/2006 season) and forward.As you can see below Ibra was the only reason for Juventus winning the scudettos.
Stats Serie A Juventus two gold seasons 2004/2006 (only goals from open play.No penalties):
David Trezeguet 32 goals in 3426 played minutes
Del Piero 20 goals in 3619 played minutes
Zlatan ibrahimovic 22 goals in 5186 played minutes
CL 2004/2006
David Trezeguet 10 goals in 1068 played minutes
Del Piero 6 goals in 1110 played minutes
Zlatan Ibrahimovic 3 goals in 1201 played minutes
Goalscoring average overall 2004/2006:
David Trezeguet 1 goal from openplay every 107:th played minute
Del Piero 1 goal from openplay every 181:th played minute
Zlatan Ibrahimovic 1 goal from openplay every 255:th played minute.
Can you see how ridicolous it is to say that Ibras two scudettos with Juventus was a product of Ibras winning mentality?And can you see why it is equally stupid to say that Barca lost La Liga 2007/2008 because Etoo hadn't a winning mentality when he in fact scored 16 goals from open play in the 18 games he participated in?
To be honest there are very few forwards that actually have performed as well as Ibra during the last 8 years.Many forwards have made 3 or 4 good seasons and then vanished.Ibra has stayed amongst the top 10 forwards for almost a decade and some years (the two last seasons in Inter) he has been amongst the 5 best.But there is also a reason for why Etoo has been beating Ibra in
every year in the FIFA footballer of the year competition (where Skippers and national team captains have been voting)
Ibras scoring record from open play is way below average if you compare with the last decades world class forwards(which I will prove when I'm finished with my stats project) and
especially so in the big competitions (3 in 24 games or so in the knockoutstages in CL for example) and in the big SerieA games.Those individual stats are a much better measure of winning mentality than being a member of a team who won the league.
He doesn't score when it matters the most because he is actually lacking winning mentality.His talent is extreme and is probably only beaten by Messi and Ronaldo.
But a player like Etoo always made those crucial goals in the big games
despite being far less talented overall than Ibra.An he also accepted playing as a winger/midfielder in Inter well aware of the fact that it would mean him scoring half as much as a centre forward.Compare that to how Zlatan reacted
when he was told to play lone centre forward in Guardiolas system which still would lead him to score a lot (remember Stuttgart and Arsenal away.The three only goals he has done in the C-knockoutstages he did under a system he hated) but which would lead to Ibra not having the ball enough.A winner adjusts to what the coach says even if it means that less glory belongs to him.Etoo did that.Scored the winning goal against Chelsea away and accepted that Milito got the role of Hero that Etoo otherwise surely would have got.But he also got his 3rd CL trophy.
Ibra is too much of a showman and needs to "dominate" the game to feel good about himself.But that also means that our team long periods of time are without a hungry goalgetter with a scoring mentality.
If he had a winning mentality the dude could easily score 40 goals a season.Did you see the game against Palermo? Outstanding goal scoring performance.Clinical fast finishing seemingly without effort. But most time of the season he just don't bother to do it.It is almost like he doesn't want to score sometimes.He is more pleased by playing the walking football with the occasional genius passes instead.
Sure he has provided 15 assists or so in the legue in two seasons and that is very good (but still less than Ronaldinho did in the Milan jersey).But 23 goals from open play in 49 serie A games is not good and especially not when the guy has a potential where the sky is the limit but where he doesn't seem to bother half the time.