Senegal’s President Macky Sall took to social media platform Twitter on Friday to announce that he is praying for the fast recovery of star player Sadio Mane who was withdrawn from the national team on Thursday.
The news of Mane's absence was on all major news outlets in the west African nation on Friday and left fans saddened but optimistic that the Lions of Teranga will still be able to put up a world class performance.
Abdou Dieng, an avid Senegalese fan says he was heartbroken because he was looking forward to Mane's performance at the global tournament.
“All of Africa wanted to see Sadio prove himself during this 2022 World Cup,” said Dieng, adding, “Sadio should be there to pull out his big game and to prove that the Senegalese team deserves its place and to confirm our victory at the African Cup of Nations.”
Ndebane Faye, another football fan says she is confident that the African champions will give a quality performance despite Mane’s absence.
“Sadio is not the only player,” Faye said. “There are other Sadio Mane’s in the team.”
Your browser doesn’t support HTML5
Fans React to Mane Rule out.mp4
Manuel Alfonso, the team doctor for the Lions of Teranga on Thursday broke the news of Sane's injury.
“The MRI shows us that the improvement is not as favorable as we imaged,” said Alfonso, adding, “Unfortunately we have to withdraw Mane from the World Cup.”