Senegal Fans Didn’t Respect My Success With Liverpool – Sadio Mané

Senegal striker Sadio Mané has said that he was not respected in his country despite his successes with Liverpool. He recently had his say while speaking to the press, and fans have been reacting.

According to him, despite winning the English Premier League title and UEFA Champions League with Liverpool, he had no respect from his countrymen until he won the Africa Cup of Nations.

He added that winning the AFCON with Senegal had always been his dream since he was a little boy.

His words, “When I was young, Senegal never won the African Cup.

That was the mentality of everybody in Senegal: ‘Senegal will never win anything because they go close, they don’t win.’

The time I say, when I become a football player, I will win the African Cup.

That was something on me, but I don’t know how. And I said, I’m not even a football player, but I think like this, that I will win something.

Before I won the African Cup, sometimes I play bad because of this.

Because of pressure. Especially of myself. I remember when we went to 2021 African Cup [played in Jan/Feb 2022], I never slept in the night more than five hours.

And then, that time, I had the biggest problem because I was at Liverpool. And the people in Senegal were expecting, they were talking too much about, ‘You only playing good in Liverpool, you play bad in Senegal.’

I didn’t have no respect, I can say. I won Premier League, I won Champions League, but nothing in Senegal. So all this on your shoulder, it’s not easy.”

WOW.

Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has played its home games at Anfield since its formation.

Domestically, the club has won 19 league titles, eight FA Cups, a record nine League Cups and 16 FA Community Shields. In international competitions, the club has won six European Cups, three UEFA Cups, four UEFA Super Cups—all English records—and one FIFA Club World Cup.

The club established itself as a major force in domestic and European football in the 1970s and 1980s, when Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Kenny Dalglish, led the club to a combined 11 League titles and four European Cups. Liverpool won two further European Cups in 2005 and 2019 under the management of Rafael Benítez and Jürgen Klopp, respectively; the latter led Liverpool to a 19th league title in 2020, the club’s first during the Premier League era.

Anfield was built in 1884 on land adjacent to Stanley Park. Situated 2 miles (3 km) from Liverpool city centre, it was originally used by Everton before the club moved to Goodison Park after a dispute over rent with Anfield owner John Houlding. Left with an empty ground, Houlding founded Liverpool in 1892 and the club has played at Anfield ever since. The capacity of the stadium at the time was 20,000, although only 100 spectators attended Liverpool’s first match at Anfield.