Sadio’s a noshow for first games

DAKAR: Senegal forward Sadio Mane will miss his team’s “first games” at the World Cup because of a leg injury, a Senegal football federation board member said.

Abdoulaye Sow said Senegal will have to cope without their best player for the start of the tournament and “not whine too much.”

“We will have to rely on playing the first games without Sadio and win without Sadio because we have 25 players apart from Sadio,” Sow said. “No one would have wanted it, but that’s what’s happened to us.”

Sow didn’t specify how many games Mane is expected to miss, and there has been no official word from Senegal or Bayern Munich.

Mane was injured a week ago in a German league game between Bayern and Werder Bremen. He was substituted in the 20th minute of Bayern’s 6-1 win. Bayern said the two-time African player of the year has an injury to the head of the fibula bone in his lower right leg.

The team’s first game in Qatar against Holland is on Monday but Mane was still waiting for more tests by the Bayern medical team.