Born in a village with a population of just under 2,000 people, Mane overcame the pain of losing his father, left home to pursue football before reaching the top of Europe with Liverpool.
“Where I come from, being a footballer means you have to sacrifice everything,” Sadio Mane shared in the trailer of the documentary about his life that was recently released. That is not only Mane’s dream, but also the dream of the boys wearing shirts with the names of Andres Iniesta, Sergio Aguero, Edinson Cavani or himself, the hero of Senegal.
Not everyone has had a fulfilling career like the 27-year-old striker. “In addition to talent, Sadio is also lucky. Not everyone reaches the finish line, they just want to try. At Bambali, as elsewhere, it’s Barcelona or death. The dream takes precedence over everything,” Le Monde quoted Omar Abdou Mendy, Mane’s former coach.
Mane is a hero to fans in his hometown of Bambali, Senegal. Photo: Tribuna.
Mane is a hero to fans in his hometown of Bambali, Senegal. Photo: Tribuna.
The orphan boy left home for football
“When I was seven, one day I was about to play a football match with the children in the village, my cousin suddenly ran up to me and said loudly: ‘Sadio, your father is dead’. ‘Really? Are you kidding me?’, I replied. At that time, I didn’t understand what was happening,” the Liverpool striker shared with the Guardian .
Before Mane’s father died, he had been battling an illness for weeks. His family had given him traditional medicines to prolong his life. However, the illness soon returned and the medicines no longer worked. There was no hospital in Bambali at the time. Mane and his family had to take his father to a nearby village to see if they could save him. Things did not turn out as he had hoped.
Mane revealed: “When I was little, my dad always said how proud he was of me. He was a man with a big heart. His passing had a big impact on me and my family. I said to myself: ‘Now I have to do my best to help my mother’. But it’s really difficult when you’re young.”
Becoming a professional footballer was all Mane wanted, but he failed to convince his family to support him in pursuing this path. The Liverpool striker dropped out of school and left home to pursue his passion with childhood friend Luc Djiboune at the age of 15.
The determination and burning desire of the fatherless boy eventually won over his family members. When Mane left his village to go to Dakar, the capital of Senegal, in search of opportunities, his mother knew her son would never do anything but play football.
The Liverpool striker left his hometown to pursue football at the age of 15. Photo: Soccerbible.
The Liverpool striker left his hometown to pursue football at the age of 15. Photo: Soccerbible.
Step up to the top of Europe
The 1992-born striker’s journey to becoming a professional player began when he scored four goals in a trial match at the Generation Foot academy. Mady Toure, co-founder of the academy, was impressed by Mane’s talent before taking him to France to play for Metz in 2011. 18 months later, the player moved to Austria to join RB Salzburg and made his debut for the U23 team as well as the Senegal national team.
Coach Juergen Klopp, Mane’s current coach, missed the chance to recruit him when he was leading Borussia Dortmund in 2014. The German strategist said that Mane looked more like a “rapper” than a football player because of the hat he wore on his head. Recalling this memory, the Senegalese striker laughed: “That’s part of life. You never know how you will have to integrate with people. However, I think Klopp was wrong. It was also an experience for me to realize that I had to show him more.”
And that’s exactly what happened. Mane scored four goals in three appearances against Liverpool for Southampton, prompting the former Dortmund boss to sign him before forming the Mane – Roberto Firmino – Mohamed Salah attack for Liverpool. However, talent wasn’t what impressed him most about the player.
“What makes Mane special is that he never stops believing. In the team meeting before the second leg of the 2018/19 Champions League semi-final against Barcelona (Liverpool lost 0-3 in the first leg – PV), Mane was confident that we would come back, even when Salah and Firmino were missing. He shared everything he could to reduce the pressure on the whole team,” coach Klopp shared.
The 2018/19 Champions League title is the pinnacle of Mane’s career to date. Photo: Getty Images.
The 2018/19 Champions League title is the pinnacle of Mane’s career to date. Photo: Getty Images.
The rest is history. The Anfield team came from behind to beat Barcelona in an emotional match with Georginio Wijnaldum and Divock Origi scoring twice. Almost a month later, Liverpool were crowned champions.
The players celebrated wildly in the dressing room after the victory, and the trophy was paraded through the streets of Merseyside in a red-tinged atmosphere. But for Mane, the day his hometown fans welcomed him home meant more than anything.
Symbol of hope
Walking around town, where fans lined up to celebrate his son’s victory, Mane noticed an elderly woman and asked why she wasn’t answering his phone. “You can call me whenever you miss me. You have my phone number,” he wondered. “But I don’t have a phone,” the woman replied sarcastically.
His simplicity and humility have made Mane look like a son of Bambali, rather than a world-class football star. Rarely does a famous player give his fans his phone number to share his difficulties when needed. And few people receive a salary of 170,000 euros a week but still use an iPhone with a broken screen.
Mane spends much of his earnings on charity work in his home country, and has criticised the Senegalese government for not caring about remote villages far from the capital where people do not have enough food, clothing or access to health care or education.
Two decades after his father’s death, Mane’s hospital opened, along with a school to provide education for children in Sedhiou, Senegal, where the World Bank estimates 70% of the population lives in poverty. “I remember my sister was born in the house because we didn’t have a hospital in our village. It was a sadness for everyone. I wanted to build something to give hope,” Mane said.
Mane is a symbol of hope in his homeland with his charity work. Photo: Getty Images.
Mane is a symbol of hope in his homeland with his charity work. Photo: Getty Images.
The Liverpool striker also affirmed that education is the most important thing for children in Senegal at the moment, even though he dropped out of school to pursue his passion for football.
Mane said: “If I had a better school when I was young, I would have learned a lot. In the village, every child wants to play football instead of going to school. But I always tell them that education must come first. Of course, they can play football but if they do both, the road to success will be shorter. Things are not the same as when I was young because it was very difficult back then.”
Ahead of the 2017/18 Champions League final against Real Madrid, the Liverpool striker sent 300 shirts bearing his name back to his hometown. Those shirts are still around. The people of Bambali wear them when they gather to watch Mane on the TV in his home. Local kids wear them during street football matches, showing off their skills with the affirmation: “I am Sadio”.
From a boy playing grapefruit football on the sand, the Senegalese striker became a symbol of hope in the hearts of his hometown fans. There is no Bambali person who does not know Mane. They consider him as a son, a friend, a brother in the family. Mane became a role model for local children, an example of pursuing dreams to succeed, but still maintaining a humble nature and a sincere heart.