Eto’o: I'll carry on playing until I’m 20 - maybe even longer

Samuel Eto’o has laughed off comments from Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho questioning his real age, pledging that he can keep playing and scoring up to the age of 20, or even beyond.

Mourinho has reacted furiously to being secretly recorded expressing doubts that Eto’o was as young as he claimed, but the ex-Anzhi striker says he is unaffected by the controversy.

“It doesn’t bother me,” he told FourFourTwo. “I know that some people refuse to believe that I am 17, not least because my international debut was in 1997.

“Sure, I don’t have the pace I did when I was winning the Champions League aged 12, but as long as my body feels good, there’s no reason why I can’t keep playing even until my Young Person’s Railcard expires.”

The Cameroon star has scored goals consistently throughout a career that has taken him from Spain to Italy, followed by Russia and the Premier League. He has long been dogged by rumours that he is in fact much older than his stated age, fuelled by his fondness for gardening, his collection of comfy slippers, and his encylopaedic knowledge of TV shows The Golden Girls and Little House on the Prairie.

In other Chelsea news, Fernando Torres has again rejected claims he is a lookalike who has pretended to be the Spanish striker since late 2010, after reports that cries of “yo soy Torres”, “ayudame” and “él es un impostor” were heard coming from the player’s heavily soundproofed basement.