Sadio Mané’s decline in self-promotion is an unusual sign of his footballing growth. He sneaked out at daybreak for an hour running as a teenager, risking Madame Brech, Metz’s academy matron, knowing. His little flat had weights and a mat from Red Bull Salzburg, so he could only watch football on TV with a friend for so long before jumping up to manically pump iron. What about his Senegalese vacation? Check passport. Check luggage. Personal trainer, check. Modern Mané works wisely. He only played every two weeks at Metz. As an educated professional, he recovers carefully between three-day matches at Liverpool.

He offers a sincere message for the common youngster who enjoys duvet time. “That’s a real mistake,” Mané says. Young people must work more and make the most of their time. Hard work caused everything to happen to me.”

Here’s why a cheerful, quiet, humble, and adorable person has had many fights. Pierre Bouby, Mané’s Metz senior teammate, said: “He was a well-raised boy, endearing, but you didn’t stand in his way because he didn’t have the time. You could see he wasn’t joking. His character is also strong. Wherever Sadio goes, he constantly expresses himself.” Olivier Perrin, Mané’s youth coach at Metz and nursery club coach in Senegal, called him “an internal power which comes from within himself, but also from his past and the path he has been on”.

Bambali boasts a new school, hospital, and mosque sponsored by Mané. The main issue is that too many kids are late to school because they’re playing football in one of his 300 Liverpool jerseys.

Perrin said Senegalese prosperity is tied to family. You must do everything for them, which Europe cannot grasp. We lack that motivation.” Mané said, “You may say, ‘I don’t know where I’m going’, but you can’t say, ‘I don’t know where I’ve come from’. Always remember your parents and caregivers.

In southwest Senegal, Bambali is on one of the Casamance River’s long, lazy loops. Mané calls this home. Its streets are adorned in banners hailing him “the pride of the nation”. Moussa Ndione, schoolteacher and coach of Mané’s first club, Mansacounda de Bambali, says their ground is “uneven, crisscrossed by children and cows, and gets requisitioned during circumcision time”. Mané has already sponsored a new school, hospital, and mosque in Bambali, along with the thatched and tin roofs, so he may not have to endure it much longer. The only issue is that too many kids are late to school attempting to resemble Sadio Mané, who donated over 300 Liverpool jerseys. A sermon from the guy himself couldn’t stop that.

The mosque has a photograph of Mané’s imam father, who died when Sadio was 11. His mother, uncle, and grandmother reared him. His 45-person extended family lives in a home he constructed.

Tiana Cissé, Mané’s aunt, is furious that “people” think the family attempted to stop him from playing football, despite Mané himself saying so. Sadio recounts returning home with a buddy to escape being chastised for playing football instead of studying at school, which “I thank my mum every day” for. His uncle Ibrahim Touré shouted at Mané for not helping with the harvest: “He said, ‘You’re wearing me out, Uncle. It’s bulls**t that I’ll be an international footballer and make you stop working in the fields. How will you succeed? Not wealthy. I have no money to send you to training.’ I didn’t believe in his goal.”

Mané fled to Dakar, Senegal’s capital, at nearly 16 to become a football star. The night before, he concealed his sports bag in the vast grass outside his house and told only his best buddy, in typical teenage manner. After his misadventure was found and stopped, he was allowed to pursue his passion in return for finishing school.

In 2009, he played in provincial championships in Mbour, 80km outside Dakar, and was summoned to a police college trial alongside hundreds of other youth. Mané says “an old man” was surprised he showed there with his tattered, repaired boots and odd shorts. However, experienced Génération Foot school scout Abdou Diatta claims his early skepticism was due to Mané’s unusual reluctance. However, he admits to being sold when he watched the kid play. Though approved by the academy and on track to become an international footballer, Mané returned home to labor in the rice and peanut fields every summer.

“I saw in him the qualities of a top-level player – speed, dribbling, an ability to beat defenses, link-up play,” said former Senegal midfielder and Génération Foot coach Jules Boucher. He placed Mané on the wing, and the academy, founded nine years earlier by ex-pro Mady Touré “with a sheet of paper, a table, two balls and some ideas”—knew they had a diamond.

Génération Foot players want to play for FC Metz. Both clubs have partnered since 2003. In late 2009, Mané attended an academy trip to Metz, on France’s borders with Germany and Luxembourg. By January 2010, the 18-year-old lived in the historic city permanently.

Mané’s initial issue was disguising an ailment to avoid damaging his transfer, along with the shock of a northern European winter. “It took me two and a half months to notice, because he didn’t say anything,” Perrin said. He suffered a terrible groin injury. Things improved after we operated.”

In fall 2011, Metz midfielder David Fleurival played for the reserves on a Saturday off due to suspension. He then told coach Dominique Bijotat about the superstar who should practice with his first squad.

“Perrin had told us that a phenomenon was coming to Metz, but we had no idea he was that good,” former Metz defender Gaetan Bussmann told FourFourTwo. I recall Sadio always seeming happy—like he never felt pressure. He plays similar to when he arrived in France. He can play 90 minutes at full effort and is physically stronger. His explosiveness on the pitch, especially one-on-one, is the biggest difference.

“I remember one reserve match against Jura Sud in November 2011—it was so cold and foggy you couldn’t see 20 meters. A game was nearly canceled. Mané came on from the bench. Due to poor visibility, we just instructed, ‘Give the ball to Sadio.’ We wanted him to dribble past opponents and score. Though he failed, he wrought havoc. We won 2-1.”

Mané’s Ligue 2 debut was a strange turning point. He appeared at the Stade Saint-Symphorien with 15 minutes left in Metz vs. Bastia on January 14, 2012, but Bastia scored late. After that, the kid improved while Metz became worse. After another 10 losses, Mané scored his first goal in May’s 5-2 loss to Guingamp before Metz was relegated to the Championnat National for the first time in their history.

Imagine telling 20-year-old Mané, who looked out the window of Metz’s squad bus in late August 2012, that his next journey to France would be to win the Champions League. Sadio was ordered to leave the coach as he prepared for a four-and-a-half-hour drive to Rouen for a game versus Quevilly. He discovered after Googleing Salzburg that he was on an aircraft going the other way.

First time as a financial commodity for Mané. His performance in the 2012 Olympics quarterfinals with Senegal delighted Gerard Houllier, who informed Red Bull, his new employer. Metz believed a €2.5 million price tag would dissuade bidders from buying a player with 19 Ligue 2 outings. They erred. Red Bull Salzburg technical director Ralf Rangnick was intrigued by Mané’s August performance against Tours. Metz suddenly had multiple €2.5m proposals, so they raised their price to €4m. Salzburg swallowed hard and raised the funds, and relegated Metz succumbed to financial realities.

“We saw a great deal of potential in Sadio,” says Salzburg’s athletic director Christoph Freund, who has since launched Naby Keita, Takumi Minamino, and Erling Braut Haaland. His movement, pace, and hunger to score were evident. He was quite open about wanting to move forward when we met him.

“It was difficult. Language and culture were distinct. When you sign a player, you see their potential but can’t be sure they’ll grow as you wish. When Sadio started here, his improvement was fascinating.”

Houllier’s intervention seems to have pushed young Mané into a Merseyside tractor beam. Roger Schmidt, Salzburg’s new manager, wanted to teach the team to play like Jurgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund, so Mané had to adjust quickly.

“Sadio worked a lot tactically, mainly in learning gegenpressing to recover the ball as soon as possible after we lost possession,” Salzburg centre-back Andre Ramalho told FFT. Schmidt said that Mané’s tactical awareness and altruism helped him shift.

“He was such a great person who had an unbelievable heart,” says Ramalho. He and I were another illustration of delight to be alive because Brazilians and Africans usually get along. Some club members assisted him off the ground and have kept in touch.”

Salzburg’s ‘integration manager’ Mustapha Mesloub was “like my real family” to Mané. Mesloub translated and ate with Mané, while his wife took care of him and cleaned his clothing. “I will never forget that passage of my life,” added the forward.

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“Sadio’s first year at the club was also the first for our new director, Ralf Rangnick, and coach, Roger Schmidt,” Ramalho says. “We lost the Champions League qualifier, finished second in the league, and were eliminated from the cup in the semi-finals. The next year, everything clicked and everyone—including Mané—improved.”

Salzburg cruised through the Europa League group stage in 2013-14, but a January 2014 friendly against Bayern Munich under Pep Guardiola sold out the Red Bull Arena for the first time since Euro 2008. Ramalho called the 3-0 triumph, “unforgettable match”.

“We missed a penalty!The defender laughs. “Mané played great in that game. Mané scored after 13 minutes, won the penalty for the second, and set up the third. On his 43rd birthday, Guardiola learned “a good lesson”.

Salzburg defeated Ajax 6-1 on aggregate in the Europa League’s first knockout stage, with Kevin Kampl and Mané scoring duplicate goals in both legs. Mané claims Klopp, who called his inability to sign him at 22 “one of my biggest mistakes” – was the victim of market pressures when he eventually met him in 2014.

Salzburg wanted Mané to lead their 2014/15 Champions League campaign, but Rangnick faced Mané’s Mr. Hyde: Mané boycotted training and even a Champions League play-off second leg, which Salzburg lost 3-0 in Malmo and 4-2 on aggregate. Red Bull decided to sell him to Spartak Moscow for the highest price after the stoush turned insulting. He wanted to join Dortmund badly. As both teams dug in, Southampton appeared as a final resort.

“I wouldn’t say that he gave off that vibe,” says former Southern Daily Echo head sports reporter Adam Leitch. Southampton had sold many successful players, notably to Liverpool, thus many players were using it as a stepping stone. Many players tried their best for Southampton, but truly for themselves.”

Mané said, “At Salzburg, I discovered real football. At Southampton, I organized. After that, I was ready to join a major European club.”

Leitch doesn’t recall the Senegalese being organized. “He had a chaos factor – to the opposition and to his own team,” he tells FFT. “It makes me smile now to hear people say Virgil van Dijk has improved greatly at Anfield when he was that good at Southampton. Liverpool bought Mané’s potential, not his current skills. Sadio had games when he was world-beater and others where you wondered, “For goodness’ sake, what’s going on?”He had some dreadful howlers in front of goal at Southampton, either misses or foolish decisions.”

Mané failed to score or assist in 46 of his 67 Premier League outings for Southampton, and he often faded out in his first season. On May 16, 2015, he played Aston Villa at St. Mary’s and showed everything. This is still the fastest Premier League hat-trick: three goals in 2:56. “I told myself I no longer had the right to make mistakes,” Mané said of the achievement, calling it “a trigger”. I believed myself I had reached another level and everything was possible.”

Mané gained tactical flexibility. In September 2015, he outperformed Wayne Rooney as Manchester United won 3-2 at St Mary’s. He scored in a 3-1 win over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in October, impressing Saints manager Ronald Koeman with his positional play. Koeman and Mané led the Saints to league highs of 7th and 6th.

The latter suffered his boss’ anger. In January 2016, Mané was benched for a 1-0 loss against Norwich after being late to a team meeting. Leitch claims a more harmless motive. He says, “Perhaps Mané wasn’t always the most prepared of characters, but I later heard that he’d simply got lost in the hotel, trying to find the right room.” But Koeman didn’t like it and urged him to leave. He never wanted players to think they could play under other rules.”

Mané’s value was growing, and Klopp hadn’t forgotten him.

Liverpool Champions League Sadio Mane

Mané has claimed he considered leaving Southampton for Manchester United, but Liverpool signed him in the summer of 2016. Mané started well for a £34m cost, but Philippe Coutinho’s January 2018 move to Barcelona altered everything. Following a bad performance in the Merseyside derby last month, Klopp claimed he had to rotate his team and sought individual conversations with Mané to boost his confidence. Additionally, Coutinho was close to departing and didn’t want to notify me. He stated he trusted me and that I would play till fatigue. Even so, I informed him I wanted to participate since Mohamed Salah and I were vying for the African Ballon d’Or.

Coutinho’s departure at Liverpool had the same effect as Mané’s quickfire hat-trick at Southampton. Mané gained space by switching flanks to make room for Salah. Andrew Robertson could play more centrally and use his No.10 skills by firing up the left touchline. Mané was voted African Player of the Year in January for more than simply his overall excellence.

“Before, he was only Mané the showman, trying to create the best assists,” says Senegal teammate Cheikhou Kouyate to FFT. “Now he knows scoring is his job. He now has assists and goals, making him the whole package. He leads too. Sadio was shy and quiet, but today he says a lot on the pitch. On the pitch, he’s a fighter, yet cute off it.”

Just under 25% of Mané’s shots and goals last season came in the final 15 minutes. He took fewer shots than in 2017/18 but from better positions, making him more clinical.

Kouyate says, “It makes you wonder why a player like him hasn’t won a major individual trophy yet, like Lionel Messi or Virgil van Dijk.” I thought Sadio beat them both last year. Fairness is lacking. Without taking penalties, he was the Premier League’s equal top scorer last season. He won Champions League and finished second in Africa Cup of Nations with Senegal. But also: just look at the way he plays…” Former Senegal coach Amara Traore said Salah beat Mané for 2018 African Player of the Year. “He was selfish and Sadio was altruistic,” Traore stated.

“That Champions League quarterfinal goal at Bayern Munich—he would have passed it not long ago. His obligation is taken. He must now keep it up and not allow his altruism win.”

Last season, Mané scored 22 Premier League goals and assisted one. Egotism and selflessness seem to be coexisting now—at halfway through the season, he scored 13 goals and seven assists at home and in Europe.

Gerard Houllier says he suggested Mané to Liverpool while at Metz, but the timing seems suspicious. In French, ‘brûler les étapes’ implies ‘to burn through phases’ or to rush. Klopp understands patience is a virtue. Sadio Mané’s rise proves that good things take time.