Dubai: In a famed attacking triumvirate with Mohammad Salah and Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane has been key to Liverpool’s surprise run to the Champions League final this season.
Since joining from Southampton for £34 million (Dh169 million) in the summer of 2016 — which made him the most expensive African player in the world at the time — the former Metz and Salzburg man has gone on to score 19 goals in 43 appearances across all competitions this season with nine assists.
That is up on last season’s tally of 13 goals in 27 appearances across all competitions with five assists.
The challenge now is to keep this up at the World Cup with his national team Senegal, where he won’t be surrounded by quite the same quality as he usually is at Anfield.
That didn’t seem to matter in qualifying where the Lions of Teranga beat Madagascar 5-2 on aggregate and then topped a group unbeaten ahead of Burkino Faso, Cape Verde and South Africa.
Of Senegal’s 15 goals scored to reach Russia, Mane only contributed two, the same as Stoke City’s Mame Diouf, Birmingham’s Cheikh N’Doye and Rennes’ Diafra Sakho, so it is clear the team aren’t solely reliant upon their biggest name.
However, the quality of the teams at the World Cup will be much higher than in qualifying.
Arguably, only Mane has experience of that level and now it is a question of whether he alone can carry the team forward in a group with Poland, Japan and Colombia.
Senegal’s first and only other World Cup outing saw them reach the quarter-finals under the late Bruno Metsu in 2002, where, captained by current coach Aliou Cisse, they stunned then-holders France 1-0 in the opening game before defeat to Turkey in the Last Eight. You would have thought a team like Senegal would have been to more World Cups, but in 14 Africa Cup of Nations attempts they have only reached one final, losing in 2002, and reaching the quarters last year.
That shows they are not as big a team as people think. But what their last World Cup outing does is create a rod for their own backs. Anything less than a quarter-final finish would be considered a failure. So, Mane might not have quite the same aura around him come July.
