England are set to face Senegal for the first time ever after the two nations set up a round-of-16 clash at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
However, there will be no reunion with Liverpool legend Sadio Mane for Jordan Henderson and Trent Alexander-Arnold after the forward was forced to withdraw from the Senegal squad on the eve of the tournament with a leg injury.
The absence of the Bayern Munich forward is inevitably a huge miss for the Teranga Lions. The 30-year-old, who won every major honour during his six seasons at Anfield, is Senegal’s undisputed talisman and the player whose who fired them both to Africa Cup of Nations glory and World Cup qualification, getting the better of Mohamed Salah ’s Egypt on both occasions, earlier this year. Such efforts, along with his contributions as Jurgen Klopp ’s side fell just short of winning an unprecedented quadruple, saw him finish second in the Ballon d’Or behind Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema.
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Senegal's Africa Cup of Nations win back in February, with Mane in attack, was their first ever continental success. Yet they have reached the World Cup knockout stages before, with their current exploits the second time that they have progressed to the round-of-16.
The Teranga Lions reached the quarter-finals back in 2002 when making their first ever appearance at the World Cup finals. As a result, as much as Mane and Senegal’s current generation have achieved, they aren’t yet their homeland’s favourite sons.
This is perhaps demonstrated best by the fact that the player Mane idolises most is loathed former Liverpool forward El Hadji Diouf. The 41-year-old starred for Senegal at the 2002 finals in Japan and South Korea, with his £10m move to Anfield from Lens confirmed after a man-of-the-match performance in a shock 1-0 victory over world champions France.
"When I was young I was watching El-Hadji Diouf as he was one of my heroes," Mane admitted during his first season at Anfield. "He also played for Liverpool and he was a big motivation because he was a great player for Senegal. He was one of the best players ever in Senegal."
Meanwhile, he’d caption a topless Instagram post alongside Diouf in March 2021: “With the best player in the history of our dear country." Rather than dispute Mane’s view of the forward, Senegal fans will inevitably share it. He is a hero in his homeland and is mobbed by fans both young and old even to this day, 20 years on from his World Cup heroics.
Yet Liverpool fans certainly won’t agree as he endured polar-opposite fortunes at Anfield. The forward would score just six goals over two disappointing seasons on Merseyside, becoming the first Liverpool number nine to go a whole campaign without scoring, with his Reds career littered by controversy including an ugly incident where he spat at a Celtic fan during a match as he left a rather different legacy.
Leaving Liverpool for Bolton Wanderers, initially on loan, in 2004, Diouf has regularly feuded publicly with Reds legends Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher ever since, with them still exchanging insults and criticism in the media even though the trio have long since hung up their boots.
"I have no problem with him. He [Gerrard] is a strong character and I am a strong character,” Diouf would say of his former captain one of his lighter tirades in an interview with BBC Africa in 2017.
“Stevie G was a very good player. People like him in Liverpool but he never did anything for his country. I am Mr El Hadji Diouf, Mr Senegal but he is Mr Liverpool and Senegal is bigger than Liverpool and he has to know that.
"We put Senegal on the world map. Before the World Cup nobody knew Senegal, but after the World Cup everybody wanted to know where Senegal was. What Maradona did for his country is what I did for Senegal. I was one of the biggest men at the 2002 World Cup.
“I am a lion, I am a bad loser and it’s not wrong to be a bad loser. I have got character and I want people to respect me. I am an easy target.
“It’s easy to talk about El Hadji Diouf and I let them talk but I know in my heart I am a good guy. My family know, my population knows, my continent knows I am a good guy and that’s the best thing. The rest is not my problem.”
Gerrard and Carragher have made it clear in the past they don’t respect Diouf. A quick Google search will bring up their ugliest of exchanges, with the feeling very much mutual and in total contrast to their respective relationships with Mane.
Even though the Senegalese has missed the World Cup because of injury, Diouf hopes he could still travel to Qatar to support his team-mates in person. Revealing he talks to the Bayern star ‘every day’, he also hopes his countrymen can make Mane proud.
"We are all sad, because we would love to see Sadio playing this World Cup and Sadio was doing everything to get ready for this World Cup," Diouf said . "All big players want to shine in the World Cup but things can happen.
“We are going to work without him and we're going to do everything to make him proud. I think Sadio's going to be stronger when he comes back.
"Before we play, he is going to call his team-mates and talk to them. Why not come to be with them?"
Diouf is currently out in Qatar and has been pictured taking an active role in Senegal training sessions in Doha, as well as on the pitch with the Teranga Lions squad and celebrating with manager Aliou Cisse, who was his captain at the 2002 World Cup, before and after matches.
While his exact role is unclear, his presence is not a surprise, such is his standing in his homeland. There is no disputing he remains one of the Reds’ worst ever signings, but there is no disputing that he is ‘Mr. Senegal' either.
Some of Liverpool’s finest might never have seen eye to eye with Diouf, with Reds fans just not getting what there is to like about the controversial forward. But to Mane and the rest of his compatriots, he will always be adored as their greatest son.
With his nation set to lock horns with England, a country where he made so many headlines for right and wrong reasons, it would be no surprise if his war of words with former Three Lions internationals Gerrard and Carragher was reignited once again.
And even if the trio this time bite their tongues and avoid any dangling bait, Diouf will no doubt hope Senegal can have the last laugh over England, regardless of Kopites’ non-feeling towards their national team, and make Reds legend Mane proud as they look to equal the class of 2002's greatest achievement and reach the World Cup quarter-finals.
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