There’s a brilliant Rakuten TV documentary on Sadio Mane’s life in football right now and we’d urge you all to give it a watch.
The programme details the difficulty in Mane’s childhood, from his father dying at a young age and the fact his family didn’t want him to play football. He actually had to run away from home to get a chance at an Academy in Dakar, in fact.
But even since making it big, it’s not been all plane sailing for Liverpool’s no.10.
One segment of the documentary shows how Senegal fans angrily reacted to his missed-penalty in 2017, which saw the country exit the AFCON.
“Sadio Mane is only good at his club and not in Senegal,” one fan said. While another added, “He’s one of Africa’s best players, but he doesn’t show it here. That’s why we can’t support him here.”
Mane’s car was also smashed up outside his home, which is utterly horrible.
Still, in 2019, he led his country to the AFCON Final, but sadly they lost out to Algeria.
There is time though for him to win the competition, although from a Liverpool perspective, it’s his form at club football we’re more worried about!
And there’s been absolutely nothing wrong with that for a very long time.