Sadio Mane: The ‘quiet kid’ with the superstar talent
One fan thumped his chest with his fist. Another raised a Senegalese flag high in the air. Around them, hundreds of others shouted, jumped and darted about in wild celebration. Sadio Mane had scored.
It did not matter that Mane’s goal was for Liverpool, not Senegal. Nor that his club would lose to Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League final.
“He’s our leader,” said Samba Ndiaye, 27, who wore a US$5 (about J$635) knockoff “Mane” Liverpool jersey to the Champions League final viewing party at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar. “He scores, but he also does things on the field that no one else does. He can make the difference.”
Mane, who left a rural village in southern Senegal as a teenager to find international stardom in Europe, hopes to defy the odds again at the World Cup in Russia.
Senegal has waited 16 years since its World Cup debut, when the 2002 team famously defeated defending champions France on the way to a quarter-final finish. Now, the West African nation is expecting its shy 26-year-old superstar to take Senegal to even greater heights.
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While Mane’s club career sparkles — he’s the highest-scoring Senegalese player in Premier League history — national team results have been mixed. He impressed at the 2012 Olympics, missed the penalty that sent highly rated Senegal home from the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations in a shootout in the quarter-finals, then bounced back to help his country qualify for Russia.
Senegal plays Poland, Japan, and Colombia in Group H at the World Cup, which Mane described as “a tough group.” He downplays talk of being the main man for Senegal, which is captained by midfielder Cheikhou Kouyate.
“The main man all the time is the team, so for us the collective is more important,” Mane said.
The 5-foot-8 winger also said he does not feel pressure.
“Honestly, I don’t know the word pressure, because football is my job. I always enjoy it,” he said.
Mane was a scrawny 15-year-old boy when he joined Generation Foot, a Senegalese academy, whose partnership with Metz in France gives top prospects a shot at European football.
He showed speed and skill in his tryout. But Mady Toure, Generation Foot’s founder and president, also liked Mane’s focus.
“He was so sure of himself,” Toure said in an interview with The Associated Press outside the national stadium in Dakar after a recent game. “Sadio’s success doesn’t surprise me.”