In the iconic scene Sadio Mane leaving the Liverpool dressing room with a mobile phone. Looking closely at the image, you realize that the screen of his mobile is broken, almost broken. The insatiable public immediately unleashes a firestorm on social media… of disdain focused on the obvious question: how “free” can someone who earns 12 million euros a year admit to walking around with a broken mobile phone in his hand?

Sadio Mane builds schools, hospitals and other charitable activities, but he is always seen with a broken phone. pic.twitter.com/ZgbEh67xSE

— Fullsend Anon (@anonSendr) May 31, 2021

Manet himself gave the answer from time to time in interviews, but mainly through the way he lived his life. His story began in 1992 with Bambali, a small village with 2,000 inhabitants on the banks of the Casamanche River in southern Senegal, far from the capital of Dakar, where to go from his village, one had to travel all over Zambia, a country that appears on the map, in order to cut Senegal into two pieces like a stripe.

Manet’s life was as difficult as that of his few fellow villagers who struggled to make a living working on banana plantations and fishing in the sea. His father, a deeply religious man, was an imam in the largest mosque in the region. He could not feed so many mouths and gave little Sadio to be raised by his uncle, away from the rest of his brothers and sisters.

As always in such difficult circumstances, football is a great opportunity for children to forget their poverty and build their dreams. Mane played football for fun and did not think about becoming a professional footballer until he saw Senegal beat world champions France 1–0 on TV in the opening match of the 2002 World Cup between Korea and Japan.

He was blinded! He was only 10 years old, and then he decided to become a football player. Having lost his father 3 years ago, his entire family was completely negative. He did not like football at all and pushed little Sadio to study letters or art. However, the baby is stuck. He dreamed that his uncle would take him to see Casa Sports, Ziginsor’s big team, his local port, but there was not enough money for even this small trip.

Stubborn as he was, he scraped together as much money as he could, borrowed what he lacked from a friend’s parents, and at the age of 15 slipped away to Dakar to try out for the famed Académie Génération Foot talent school, an academy he ran territory of French Metz. He talks about this experience:

“A lot of children came to the tests. I will never forget this scene, it is also a bit funny. An elderly gentleman saw me and did not believe that I went to play football. He sees my shoes: “How will you play? With these; And the shorts you wear are not for football.” Indeed, my shoes were torn and old. I was wearing simple shorts, but I had a great desire to play ball. “Let me enter the stadium,” I replied, and he let me. When I touched the ball, I saw surprise written on his face. When I scored 4 goals in a few minutes, he came up to me and said: “Come play with me.” And he made me play!”

This news shocked his family. On the one hand, poverty, on the other, an obvious opportunity for a better tomorrow. His mother sold her crops, his uncle borrowed everything he could find, and they were stripped of everything to cover his expenses to stay in Dakar and go to a school that was accepted by a foreign family who treated him like their own child.

With the high school team he scored 131 goals in 90 games and the Mets decided to take him to France to test him at a higher level. He was 18 years old and had a serious groin injury, but he did not tell anyone about it because he was afraid that he would be turned back. He later admitted in an interview that he locked himself in the dressing room and cried non-stop because his body had betrayed him at the most important moment of his life. But such was his thirst for success that, playing with unbearable pain, he convinced his coach to leave him.

He played in the Metz youth team for a year, and in 2011 he made his debut with the big ones in Ligue 2, where he immediately stood out. The following year, Metz were relegated, but Mane was able to get a call-up to the Senegal national team and move to Salzburg for €4 million, the third most expensive sale in Metz’s history after Robert Pires and Miralem Pjanic.

Continuation Austria it was explosive. With 45 goals and 32 assists in 87 games, he aroused the interest of Jurgen Klopp, who watched him closely on the Senegal Olympic team in 2012, but felt he was not yet ready for a Dortmund-level team and was not “prepared” for in order to give the money that Salzburg asked for. Roland Koeman had no such doubts. When he was signed to Southampton, he convinced management to spend €23m on Mane, and no one has mourned his money since…

Forming an unbeatable back four with Tadić, Waniyama and Klein, Mane scored 25 goals and provided 14 assists in 75 games to send the Saints to 5th and 6th place in the Premier League., just one step away from the “beasts” of English football. Klopp has already left for Liverpool. He realized his mistake and in the summer of 2016, after a long struggle, convinced the owners of the Reds to give Southampton 41.3 million euros – the largest amount ever allocated by the legendary club for an African footballer. Urban legend has it that he convinced them by saying that “every pound you spend will be worth double”, with the additional argument that the player who broke “their” Robbie Fowler’s record for the fastest hat-trick in Premier League history league, he doesn’t need to wear another jersey. How long did it take Mane to score three goals in one match? Only 2 minutes and 56 seconds!

Sadio Mane fully lived up to Klopp’s confidence. After scoring 82 goals in 182 matches, he helped Liverpool break the “curse” and win the Premier League again after 30 years! With it, he won everything: the Champions League, European Super Cup, Club World Cup, FA Cup and League Cup, as well as the title of top scorer in the Premier League with 22 goals in 2019.

His commitment to purpose was amazing. When Klopp asked him to move to the left to accommodate Salah, Mane resignedly did so despite being the team’s most valuable player at the time. “Why should I refuse? I came here to be a footballer, not to pose as a diva,” was his disarming response when asked about it.

At the same time, his path to the Senegal national team was not paved with rose petals. When he missed the decisive penalty in the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations semi-final against Morocco, angry fans wrecked the jeep he had given to his uncle and the police had to guard his family around the clock for a long time.

The following year, when he conceded an easy goal to qualify for the next African Cup of Nations against Guinea, he was booed so loudly by the fans that he passed out at the end of the match and was carried to the dressing room. his teammates. He faced similar pressure in the 2019 tournament’s final loss to Algeria, as well as a poor (for his class) performance at the World Cup in Russia, where he scored just one goal in a 2–2 draw with Japan.

Justification has come 2022when he took her by the hand Senegal and led to him winning the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time in his history after losing two finals. He missed a penalty in the 7th minute, but hit the target with a last performance in the final against the institution’s poly victory Egypt, breaking another “curse” after Liverpool, a year later when he was transferred to Bayern Munich and finished second in voting for the Golden Ball, losing only to Karim Benzema.

All these achievements are enough to admire Ballonbuwa, the “magician of balloons”, who started barefoot from a small village in Senegal and conquered the whole world. But they are not enough to explain the love that all those who live with him have for him, and they know very well why, with an income of so many millions of euros every year, he walks around with a broken mobile phone.

He answered verbally himself in an interview: “When I was young, my family was starving, my mother washed other people’s things. I had to work in the fields to earn a living and it was hard for us to survive. I even played football barefoot. Now that I’m making enough money, I can help my people. Why do I need 10 Ferraris, 20 diamond watches, or two private jets? What will all this mean for me or for the world? I prefer to use my money to build schools, a stadium, to offer clothes, shoes and food to poor people. I’m offering 70 euros a month to every person in a poor area of ​​Senegal. I don’t need to own luxury cars or houses. Instead, I prefer that my fellow men take a share of what life has offered to a fortunate man like me!”

And all this is not only in words, but also in deeds. With his money, the small village in which he grew up turned into a decent city in a few years. He built a hospital, he built a school, he ran electricity, he built a stadium and a new mosque, he donated a significant amount to his country in the difficult times of the corona virus, he gives 70 euros to each of his villagers. a month and scholarships to the best students to help them build a better future. Every year he comes there and plays ball in the field, driving around without luxury cars and bodyguards, without flaunting his wealth in front of the people with whom he grew up.

“He is generous, he gives money to his country, he creates jobs, he is a child who really has a heart,” Aliou Cisse, his coach in Senegal, said of him on the occasion of the Socrates award. for the first time in 2022 and from now on will be awarded to football players with a pronounced social and charitable activity.

“The biggest motivation in my life that pushed me from a young age was to give something to my country and my fellows as much as I could. And advice to the guys: never stop chasing your dreams,” he said as he accepted the award, perhaps still in his pocket with that shattered screen mobile phone that drew so many bitter comments from people who have learned how to live. Blinded by nothing but the brilliance showcases…