Sadio Mane, the Senegal superstar, has expressed his joy after guiding his team to victory in the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon.
In his triumphant attitude, the UEFA Champions League winner referred to the AFCON as the ‘greatest trophy’ of his life.
Senegal’s last penalty was emphatically knocked in by Sadio Mane, who made up for his penalty miss in normal time.
Following the game, an overjoyed Mane declared Sunday, February 6, 2022, to be the ‘greatest day of his life.’
“It is not the most important trophy but it is the most important day of my life, the best day of my life, and of course so far, the best trophy of my life. I can’t express my feeling today, I’m very happy,” he said.
When questioned about his penalty miss in the opening ten minutes of the game, he noted that while he was frustrated with the miss, his teammates’ remarks at halftime invigorated him.
“I was not happy because I most of the time score penalties but I think a big difference today was my teammates, after missing the penalty everybody came to me in the dressing room [and told me] ‘Sadio we don’t care what happened. We lose together, we win together. We push together and we are going to make it’. And in the end when I was going to shoot the second penalty, they all came to me ‘we trust you, go and do it’ I think that made the difference. I think that was the strength today because it gave me more motivation to shoot and score and I did it for the people,” he added.
Senegal defeated Egypt 5-2 on penalties after a scoreless 120-minute contest.
The Teranga Lions became the region’s fourth winner, bringing the region’s total to ten: Ghana (4), Nigeria (3), Ivory Coast (2), and now Senegal (1).
Egypt (7), Algeria (2), Morocco (1), and Tunisia (1) have the most trophies in the North African area, with 11 total (1).
