In many ways, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Samuel Eto'o couldn't be more different.
The Barcelona striker is the physically-imposing son of Bosnian and Croatian parents who emigrated to liberal Sweden. Meanwhile, several thousand miles away, Samuel Eto'o was being born in a considerably warmer town called Nkon in Cameroon.
Despite their obvious differences, though, they do share a number of characteristics. They are, of course, both as temperamental as it’s possible to get without becoming a Hollywood movie diva. And they both have a long-established habit of scoring lots of goals.
And then, this summer, fate somehow conspired to bring them closer together than they could ever have imagined. In the biggest swap deal in football history, Inter and Barca persuaded the two strikers to switch clubs and quite literally fill each others boots. Then, as if the debate about which of the two clubs had got the better deal wasn't ubiquitous enough, the Blaugrana and the Beneamata were thrown together in the group stages of this seasons' Champions League.
So who has benefited most from this most intriguing superstar exchange? At the moment it really is too early to say. Both players have made decent starts to the season with their new clubs, with Eto'o scoring two goals in three Serie A games for Inter and 'Ibra' hitting two in two in La Liga. They have both done well, without exactly setting their stadiums on fire.
But there can be little doubt that it is Eto'o who has the most to prove when the two teams meet on Wednesday in the San Siro.
For a start, the Cameroon international didn't want to leave Barca in the first place and doesn't really have any idea why the club let him go.
“Since the moment I joined Barcelona and since my very first game for them, I did all I could to do the job asked of me,” Eto’o explained to Catalunya Radio on the eve of the game.
"For me, last season was a good year, as we all worked together for the good of Barcelona."
You have to admit that he does have a point.
 |  |
| Samuel ETO'O Internazionale / Cameroon | Zlatan IBRAHIMOVIC FC Barcelona / Sweden |
| Age: 28 | 27: Age |
| League goals 2008-09: 30 | 25: League goals 2008-09 |
| League minutes per goal: 99.5 | 130.8: League minutes per goal |
During his five seasons with the Catalan club, Eto'o scored 130 goals in 200 appearances in total, won three league titles, two Champions Leagues and one Copa del Rey. He was also picked up a Champions League Best Forward award and finished as the top scorer in La Liga in 2006.
But perhaps more than his career achievements, it was the manner in which he played that made Pep Guardiola's decision to swap him for Ibrahimovic so difficult to take.
Ever since he signed for Barca in 2004, Eto'o gave his all for the greater good of the team, not only acting as the main goal threat but frequently tracking back, tackling and generally putting in the kind of shift that Ibrahimovic has never dreamt of doing in his life. Eto'o was very much a striker whose first line of attack was often defence. Quite simply, he led from the front and was a vital component in last season's treble-winning side, scoring 36 times in 52 appearances in all competitions. There is a school of thought that thinks Barca cannot be as great without him.
His international record isn't bad either. Eto'o made his debut for Cameroon when he was just 14-years-old, and his 41 goals in 86 appearances for the Indomitable Lions make him the leading goalscorer in the country's history. We are talking about someone who is probably the greatest African player of all time.
So we can only conclude that the reason Guardiola elbowed Eto'o out of the Barca exit door was more personal than professional, and the coach has stated that he felt the African charger didn't have a "feeling" for the club, whatever that means.
But if Guardiola thinks Zlatan Ibrahimovic is going to pull his finger out solely for the greater good of Barcelona, he has got another thing coming. The former Malmo and Ajax striker is pretty much a law unto himself and is more likely to follow his ego than anything said in a team talk. But this is the essence of the Swedish international's appeal.
What Ibrahimovic does, time and time again, is get his team a goal out of virtually nothing. As a footballer, he is quite unique. How many 6ft 5in strikers do you know who have the skill and deftness of touch that he has? 'Ibra' makes Peter Crouch look like a long length of balsa wood in comparison.
Last season he scored 29 goals in 46 games for Jose Mourinho's Nerazzurri, finishing as the top scorer in Serie A and almost single-handedly taking the side to yet another Scudetto.
Guardiola knows exactly what he getting; a supremely gifted unlocker of doors who can change and win games with one piece of pure non-textbook brilliance. He may not be the out-and-out centre-forward that Samuel Eto'o can be, but he is undoubtedly a more gifted all-round footballer with a higher element of technically-driven fantasy to his game.
But don't Barca already have someone like that in Lionel Messi, we hear you cry. Surely they just need a hard-working hitman who can put the ball in the back of the net?
Well, yes they do. But one look at the career goal scoring records of Eto'o and Ibrahimovic tell us that there is actually very little to choose between them. Eto'o has scored 205 goals in 403 games in his club career, while Ibrahimovic has 157 from 355 appearances.
Considering Ibrahimovic is more of a shadow striker, or in many ways two strikers-in-one, you have to conclude that he is the winner of this particular battle of the titans, even if Inter did get the better deal.
Whether he will come out on top on Wednesday evening, however, remains to be seen.
Gil Gillespie, Goal.com