It’s an odd marker of Sadio Mané’s development as a footballer that he doesn’t flog himself as hard as he used to. As a teenager, he would chance detection by the formidable Madame Brech, Metz’s academy matron, to sneak out at dawn for an hour’s run. In Austria, he could watch football on TV with a pal for only so long; he’d sourced weights and a mat from Red Bull Salzburg for his pokey flat, and would soon jump up to manically pump iron. And for his holiday back home in Senegal? Passport – check. Luggage – check. Personal trainer – check. But the modern Mané knows how to work himself judiciously. At Metz, he was playing only every couple of weeks. At Liverpool, as matches flash by at three-day intervals, he recuperates carefully, as befits the educated professional he has become.
And he has an earnest message for the average teenager who prefers a little extra duvet time. “That’s a real mistake,” insists Mané. “When you’re young, that’s when you have to make the most of it; to work even harder. Everything that’s happened to me is the result of hard work.”
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Here lies the explanation for how someone universally described as smiley, reserved and humble – even adorable – has wound up in more than a few tiffs. Pierre Bouby, a senior team-mate of Mané at Metz, later recalled: “He was a well brought-up boy, endearing, but you didn’t stand in his way because he didn’t have the time. You could tell that he wasn’t there to mess about. His strength of character is very pronounced, and that, too, is a strength of his. Wherever Sadio is, he always asserts himself.”
Mané’s youth coach at Metz, Olivier Perrin, who also later coached his nursery club in Senegal, described him as possessing “an internal strength which comes from within himself, but also from his background and the journey he has been on”.
Mané’s youth coach at Metz, Olivier Perrin, who also later coached his nursery club in Senegal, described him as possessing “an internal strength which comes from within himself, but also from his background and the journey he has been on”.
Mané has already funded a new school, a hospital and a mosque in Bambali. The only problem is that too many children are late to school because they’re out playing football in one of the 300 Liverpool shirts that he sent over
“For the Senegalese,” said Perrin, “success is also linked to the family. You have to do everything for them, and that goes beyond what we can comprehend in Europe. That’s a source of motivation we don’t have.” As Mané himself once asserted: “You can say, ‘I don’t know where I’m going’, but you can’t say, ‘I don’t know where I’ve come from’. You must always think of those who brought you up and helped you.”
The village of Bambali lies on one of the vast, lazy curves of the Casamance River in south-west Senegal. For Mané, this is home. Its streets are covered in posters calling him “the pride of the nation”. Moussa Ndione, schoolteacher and coach of Mané’s first club, Mansacounda de Bambali, complains that their pitch is “uneven, crisscrossed by children and cows, and gets requisitioned during circumcision time”. He may not have to put up with it for much longer, though, seeing as Mané has already funded a new school, a hospital and a mosque in Bambali, alongside the thatched and tin roofs. The only problem is that too many children are late to school because they’re out trying to become the next Sadio Mané, clad in one of the 300 Liverpool shirts that he sent over. Even a sermon from the man himself hasn’t been able to stop that.
The mosque features a portrait of Mané’s father, an imam, who died when Sadio was 11. He was raised by his mother, his uncle and his grandmother. His extended family – some 45 strong – now live in a mansion he had built for them.
His aunt, Tiana Cissé, is indignant that “people” suggest the family tried to prevent Mané from playing football – which rather ignores the fact that he is the main person who says so. Sadio once recounted coming home with a friend to avoid being clouted for playing football instead of studying at school (something he describes as part of his education, for which “I thank my mum every day”). His uncle, Ibrahim Touré, recalls shouting at Mané for refusing to help with the harvest: “He said, ‘You’re wearing me out, Uncle. I’m going to be an international footballer and I’ll make it so you don’t work in the fields any more.’ I told him, ‘Bulls**t! How will you succeed? I’m not rich. I don’t have any money to send you for training.’ I didn’t believe in his dream.”
When he was nearly 16, Mané ran away to Dakar, Senegal’s capital, in order to find football fame. In true teenage style, he’d hidden his sports bag in the long grass outside his house the previous night, and told only his best friend. His misadventure was soon discovered and curtailed, but he won permission for a real tilt at his dream in exchange for finishing the school year.
In 2009, he was seen playing in regional championships in Mbour, 80km outside of Dakar, and invited to a trial with hundreds of other youngsters at the capital’s police college. The way Mané tells it, “an old man” expressed surprise that he had turned up in his ripped, stitched-up boots and a rather curious-looking pair of shorts. But Abdou Diatta, veteran scout at the Génération Foot academy, insists his initial scepticism was, in fact, due to Mané’s extreme reticence. He agrees, though, that he was sold the instant he saw the youngster in action. Mané was accepted by the academy and en route to becoming an international footballer – yet he still returned home to work in the rice and peanut fields every summer.
This Post First Appeared on fourfourtwo.com
