Aliou Cissé, the coach of the Senegal team has retained Sadio Mané, his superstar, for the 2022 World Cup. The technician, who called up 26 players for this tournament, gave some details about the striker, injured in the last match of Bayern Munich, his club.


The coach, who extended his contract until 2024, has retained 26 players including the star.


“We are following him. We sent the doctor from the Senegalese Federation to Germany, since yesterday or the day before yesterday, ” recalled Aliou Cissé, during a tense press conference.

“Yesterday he spent the whole day in Munich and then he went to Austria, again to push the examinations concerning the boy’s health. The good news today is that there is no operation. Then we gave ourselves the opportunity to meet again next week. The injury will affect a week or ten days. From there, we will do another control MRI to see the evolution of this injury. I preferred to keep him in the group because it is a situation that we have already experienced, to a lesser degree, with Ismaïla Sarr at AFCON 2021. We were able to manage it well. Sadio is a special player in our squad. So, it is important to continue to follow his injury, hoping that in two or three weeks, there will be an evolution. But we are really optimistic”.

But the coach reminds that he can change a player from the group before the first match, scheduled for November 21 against the Netherlands, in group A. A possibility for the African Player of the Year and second in the Ball ranking d’Or 2022 that Aliou Cissé cannot totally rule out.

“Losing Sadio Mané is not something easy for the coach, for the team and even for African football”, added the coach.

“Today, we don’t want to think about it. But inevitably, we are obliged to anticipate in case he is absent. I don’t want to talk about the absence of Sadio Mané even if in the back of my head, I’m trying to prepare for it”.

Whatever happens, the reigning African champions will have to face, the Dutch , then Qatar and Ecuador on November 29.

World Cup 2022: Senegal’s 26-men squad




Source: AfrikPage