Senegal village is rooting for Reds striker

when you are physically fit and well, and the frustration which comes from being injured. Staying fit and injury free is something I want to be.

“It was nice to come on in the cup final, be involved and be a part of it. We had a fantastic season last season and we’ve been able to repeat that again. Maybe the performances, the fluidity, hasn’t quite been there so much this season but it is very hard to replicate what was obviously an amazing season for us in 2016-17. But when it mattered, we got all three trophies again in the end.

“In January, I was obviously out for an operation, I was out for a couple of months before coming back, so it has been quite a frustrating six months for me. But to be fit again, come on and enjoy the final with the boys, felt great. Playing the tail end of last season, I was struggling physically. To finally get that sorted around January, it took me a while to get back feeling myself, but I’m feeling good now.

“Even last season wasn’t fantastic in every sense for me – people forget I wasn’t in the team until November. That was a different test mentally. Getting my place in the team and having a great season, getting the medals and the accolades and having a short summer, has been testing physically. But that is football. Every boy in this team will have injuries or testing times in their careers and that is how the last six months have gone for me.” Liverpool forward Sadio Mane expects his home village of Bambali in Senegal to grind to a halt tomorrow as the 2,000 inhabitants all stop to watch him play in the Champions League final.

In 2005, a 13-year-old Mane found himself in a similar position for the club’s famous 2005 Champions League final win over AC Milan, but he could not dream he would be following in the same footsteps more than a decade later.

And he hopes to be able to return to Bambali, where his family still live, with a winner’s medal this summer.

“If you had said then I would be playing the final I would say it is something incredible in my life. Hopefully we are going to win,” he said. “My family still live in the village. My mum and my uncle. They are all going to be watching.

“There are 2,000 in the village. I bought 300 Liverpool jerseys to send to the people in the village, so the fans can wear to watch the final.

“Nobody in the village will work this day. I will be going back in the summer after the World Cup and hopefully I will be showing everyone a [winners’] medal.”