It’s an odd marker of Sadio Mané’s development as a footballer that he doesn’t flog himself as hard as he used to. As a teenager, he would chance detection by the formidable Madame Brech, Metz’s academy matron, to sneak out at dawn for an hour’s run. In Austria, he could watch football on TV with a pal for only so long; he’d sourced weights and a mat from Red Bull Salzburg for his pokey flat, and would soon jump up to manically pump iron. And for his holiday back home in Senegal? Passport – check. Luggage – check. Personal trainer – check. But the modern Mané knows how to work himself judiciously. At Metz, he was playing only every couple of weeks. At Liverpool, as matches flash by at three-day intervals, he recuperates carefully, as befits the educated professional he has become.
And he has an earnest message for the average teenager who prefers a little extra duvet time. “That’s a real mistake,” insists Mané. “When you’re young, that’s when you have to make the most of it; to work even harder. Everything that’s happened to me is the result of hard work.”
Here lies the explanation for how someone universally described as smiley, reserved and humble – even adorable – has wound up in more than a few tiffs. Pierre Bouby, a senior team-mate of Mané at Metz, later recalled: “He was a well brought-up boy, endearing, but you didn’t stand in his way because he didn’t have the time. You could tell that he wasn’t there to mess about. His strength of character is very pronounced, and that, too, is a strength of his. Wherever Sadio is, he always asserts himself.”
Mané’s youth coach at Metz, Olivier Perrin, who also later coached his nursery club in Senegal, described him as possessing “an internal strength which comes from within himself, but also from his background and the journey he has been on”.
