Sadio Mane saw his World Cup dream crashing down on the eve of the tournament as a knee injury ruled him out of a trip to Qatar.
While his Senegal teammates were flying to the Middle East, Mane was lying in a hospital bed in Innsbruck, Austria undergoing knee surgery. Just down the corridor, a young footballer aspiring to follow in his footsteps was facing the same fate.
Maxi Scharfetter grew up in Salzburg, watching Mane in his formative years from the terraces as he made his name for Red Bull Salzburg before joining Liverpool. As Mane headed to Merseyside, Scharfetter also left Salzburg to chase his football dream, leaving his family behind six years ago to join the academy of Wolfsberger AC, a team in the Austrian Bundesliga.
