Imagine sitting on a hospital bed, 5,569 km away from what, just the day before, would have been your biggest performance stage.
Imagine watching your teammates make history in your absence on football’s biggest stage, the World Cup (WC) when you’re the one who put in the most work to get them there.
That is the story of Senegalese star footballer and Bayern Munich striker Sadio Mane. Anyone in his position is justified in wanting to keep to himself away and process the last three weeks in silence, but not Mane. While his Senegal teammates were flying to the Middle East for the WC, he was bedridden in Innsbruck, Austria, after it was established he would not recover from a knee injury in time to feature in Qatar.
He did not let this dampen his spirit.
He still took time to inspire the world. A younger footballer, Maxi Scharfetter, who grew up in Salzburg, watching Mane in his formative years, got wind, off of social media of course, that he was in the same hospital with the former Liverpool ace, having undergone surgery himself.
Scharfetter took a leap of faith and approached Mane to get a selfie with his idol. However, in an interview with the UK’s Mirror, the Wolfsberger AC player says his hopes for just a picture turned into an hour-long enriching conversation with the Senegalese star who treated him as a long-time friend all along.
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“He is a special player for me because I remember him from the Salzburg times, watching him when I was a kid, and I loved him as a player. In the next years, at Liverpool, I followed his career. It was not just the picture because we began to talk, and we spoke for over an hour which was incredible for me. The entire time I was very, very nervous because I went in his room, and I was like, ‘oh my gosh, there’s Sadio Mane!” Scharfetter, the Wolfsberger AC player, said in his interview with the Mirror.
“He said a lot of motivating things to me,” Scharfetter dished. “For example, he said my injury has a reason, and that there is something bigger behind this injury. For me, it was crazy to meet him. The last thing he said to me as I left the room was, ‘maybe one day we will play a Champions League final together.’ So now I think that would be a nice story. To meet him in a hospital and, maybe four years later, play against him in a Champions League final, that would be a dream.”
If that encounter with a total stranger doesn’t point to who Mane is away from the pitch, then his philanthropy work might. During this year’s Ballon d’Or ceremony, Mane became the first winner of the newly introduced Socrates Award, a humanitarian award named after the late footballer Socrates, who co-founded the Corinthians Democracy Movement in opposition to the ruling military government in 1980s Brazil.
A NATIONAL ICON AND PHILANTHROPIST
A national icon, Mane, who grew up in Bambali, a Senegalese village 250 miles away from Dakar, had worked to impact the lives of the people he left behind when he ran away at the tender age of 15 to pursue his professional career. His acts of charity, which led to his Socrates Award, have more often than not looked like altruism as he appears disinterested in living a flashy lifestyle that comes with playing in the world’s best and most lucrative leagues.
One of the most remarkable transformations of his village, which has an estimated population of 2000 people, is the construction of a hospital. Mane solely funded the project, pushed by a fire ignited by the unfortunate events of his father’s loss of life to a strange illness for which he could not get professional treatment as they had no hospital in the village.
In a documentary about the footballer, released in 2020, he narrates how, at the age of seven, his father, an Imam, died, a loss that put a fire in Mane to do everything to help his mother.
“We were about to play on the field when a cousin approached me and said, ‘Sadio, your father passed away.’ I replied: ‘Oh really? He’s joking’ I couldn’t really understand it,” he narrated.
The hospital, said to have cost the footballer more than $550,000 to construct, was inaugurated mid-last year. The facility is said to serve more than 30 villages surrounding Bambali.
It has an Accident and Emergency department, maternity care wing, dental facilities, and more. His hospital project came hot on the heels of a secondary school and a supermarket named after Mane.
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The footballer maintains that education is crucial and, while he did not get the chance to school to the highest level possible, he is giving youth in his village a chance to do so.
He has also opened a fuel station, a post office for his people, and, most importantly, a stadium, a win-win arrangement for him and the community.
On top of the development he has brought to his hometown, Mane gives families in his village monthly stipends to help with their expenses, among other things.
“Why would I want ten Ferraris, 20 diamond watches, or two planes? What will these objects do for me and for the world? I was hungry, and I had to work in the field; I survived hard times, played football barefooted. I did not have an education and many other things, but today with what I earn thanks to football, I can help my people. I built schools, a stadium, we provide clothes, shoes, food for people who are in extreme poverty. In addition, I give 70 euros per month to all people in a very poor region of Senegal, which contributes to their family economy. I do not need to display luxury cars, luxury homes, trips, and even planes. I prefer that my people receive a little of what life has given me,” Mane is reported to have told http://As.com in an interview in 2019.
When Covid-19 hit in March 2020, Mane donated £41,000 to the Senegalese National Committee fighting the pandemic.
🇸🇳 𝐀𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐮 𝐂𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐞 [𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡]: "This victory, I would like to dedicate it to a man who is doing extraordinary things for our country, who is unfortunately not here today. This man is called Sadio Mane. pic.twitter.com/xnNpVqNZs7
— babel6. (@LABabel6) December 2, 2022
WHERE IT ALL STARTED
Mane’s football journey started on the dusty fields of Bambali hence his great connection to his roots. However, after failing to convince his family to allow him to abandon his education to pursue his professional football career, he ran away from home at 15.
A friend helped him move to Dakar, and only then did his family start helping him chase his dream. He joined Generation Foot academy in the Senegal capital, Dakar, and his journey to stardom began.
In his documentary, Mane narrates how he scored four goals during a trial match at the academy run by Mady Tourè. Selectors were impressed, with French side Metz handing him his first professional deal in 2011.
He moved to Austrian side Red Bull Salzburg 18 months later, where he scored 31 goals in 63 appearances between 2012 and 2104. Southampton snatched him up in 2014, and he scored 21 goals in 67 appearances before Jurgen Klopp got a second chance to work with the Senegal national.
Klopp had passed up on the opportunity to sign him at Borussia Dortmund. Still, when the opportunity knocked a second time, Klopp signed up the forward at Liverpool for a transfer fee of £34 million on a five-year contract. On 22 June 2022, Mané joined Bundesliga side Bayern Munich on a contract until 30 June 2025.
The fee was reported to be €32 million (£27.4m), potentially rising to €41 million (£35m) based on appearances plus individual and team achievements.
As Senegal faces England on 4 December in the round of 16, the Aliou Cissè-led men will have their work cut out in their quest for last-eight slots. When the Lions of Teranga last qualified for the quarter-final at the WC in 2002, knocking out Sweden in a 2-1 outcome in the round of 16, Mane was a pre-teen, only ten years and 66 days old then.
Twenty years on, the 30-year-old is painfully watching the side, a team he played a huge part in helping qualify for the global showpiece in Qatar, go to war, from his recovery bed.
Having sustained an injury a fortnight before the WC kick-off and was ruled out on the eve of the tournament, his absence has been felt for the African champions in Qatar.
However, his inspiration continues to push the squad to greater heights, so much so that his tactician Cisse’ dedicated their win over Ecuador that saw them sail through to the last 16 to the talisman.
“I would like to dedicate this victory to a man who does extraordinary things for the country, who is unfortunately not here today. This man’s name is Sadio Mane,” Cisse was quoted saying after his side’s win over the South Americans.
The African champion played a crucial role in Senegal’s run to qualify for Qatar. Opening their camping against Togo, Mane was on the scoresheet in the September 2021 matches against Togo and DRC, where his side won 2-0 and 3-1, respectively.
In their 4-1 victory over Namibia in October, he scored in the home match and provided two assists in a 1-3 away win. In the decider match against Egypt, played in Dakar, Mane scored the winning penalty in a 3-1 penalty shootout victory over the Pharaohs. As Cisse’s men face England, it will be the first-ever senior international match between the two sides.
While African nations have lost eight of their nine World Cup knockout round games against European sides, Senegal is the exception with their 2-1 win over Sweden in the round of 16 in 2002. As they look to replicate their 2002 heroics without Mane, it will be challenging as the odds are against them.
Even though England has never lost against an African side, the Lions Of Teranga will have an opportunity to change that Tuesday. A win would be a great gift to Mane, who played his part in helping Senegal qualify for Qatar 2022.