After Senegal’s nail-biting win at the African Cup of Nations earlier this month, Sadio Mané has been the name on everybody’s lips. Scoring the winning penalty in the shootout cemented Mané’s position in the football hall of fame.
Not that it was hotly disputed before mind you, he’s regularly been voted into the top 5 of the yearly Best FIFA Men’s Player. Although he’s not even reached 30 years old yet, Mané has a career that any one of us would dream of, but how did he get there, and what spurs him on to continue excelling? We’re going to take a closer look at the life and achievements of this exceptional footballer.
Early Career
Born on the 10th of April 1992, Sadio Mané had aspirations to become a footballer from the very beginning. Unfortunately for him, his family and his father, in particular, did not agree with his career goals and forbade him from playing. Despite this, Mané pursued his dreams and at the age of seven, after losing his father, began to chase his goals in earnest. His natural talent was clear, but it was his unwavering drive that landed him his first professional signing for Ligue 2 club Metz at the age of just 19.
His first season for Metz went relatively well, with Mané making the starting selection fourteen times out of nineteen games. Despite only scoring one goal during this time, Red Bull Salzburg spotted his talent and signed him, reportedly for one of the highest fees that Metz has ever transferred a player for. This signing would see his career really take off, enabling Mané to help his teammates to win a domestic double in the 2013/14 season.
Premier League
Good work never goes unnoticed and later on that year Mané was set to break another club record, but this time for Southampton. The English club had spotted him playing for Salzburg and paid £11.8 million, the most Southampton had ever paid for a transfer. It ended up being a great decision for them, as Mané kept pulling tricks out of the bag, perhaps the most memorable for Southampton being his record-breaking hat-trick against Aston Villa in 2015. He managed to score the heralded three goals in a time of just 176 seconds, the fastest ever scored in the Premier League.
Following this success, Mané was signed to Liverpool in 2016 where he has stayed ever since. They paid a cool £34 million for him, which despite the eye-watering sum, seems to have proved good value. He helped his teammates make it to the UEFA Champions League Finals in both 2018 and 2019, finally winning it in 2019. It was in this season that he finished as the top goalscorer for the season and won the hallowed Golden Boot. It took four years at the club before Mané’s side would win the Premier League, ending a 30-year spell of Liverpool being out of luck. Since then he’s gone on to score his 100th Premier League goal and has also had some huge successes playing for his national team. It should come as no surprise that there are a whole host of clubs that are hoping for him to join them. Recently Zidane wanted Real Madrid to spend 140 million euros on him. This would make him their most expensive signing ever, beating Eden Hazard’s current record of just over 100 million.
Senegal National Team
As mentioned before, Mané’s most recent major win was during the African Cup of Nations this year, where he helped Senegal to victory, even scoring the deciding penalty. It should go without saying that sports betting sites across Nigeria were offering deals throughout the events of the cup, with excitement around teammates Mané and Mo Salah almost reaching boiling point as the two went head to head in the final. SBO.net provided a rundown of all of the deals available during the prestigious tournament but continues to do so even since Mané scored that deciding goal.
As well as this year’s ACON tournament, Mané has played for Senegal since 2015 in the cup and no less than 87 times in total at the international level. He debuted for them in 2012 and since then has worked his way up to achieving the title of Senegal’s joint-record goal scorer. Not only this, he’s been named Africa’s Footballer of the Year once so far and helped his home nation qualify for the second time ever to play in the 2018 FIFA World Cup. It’s fair to say that as football careers go, Mané’s has been a glistening one. At almost thirty years old, there’s still more to see from this exciting player yet and we can’t wait for it.
Anchor: sports betting sites across Nigeria
