Among all the stories of footballers is the story of Liverpool, the international Senegalese player, Sadio Mane, who recently released a new documentary about some of his childhood memories that affected his career completely.
The documentary tells the memories of Mane since he kicked grapefruit as a football in Bambali village in Senegal, through events until he crowned the Champions League last year. He also narrates his story from poverty to richness. In the team, including Mohamed Salah and Virgil Van Deek.
Among Sadio Mani's childhood memories is the day his father passed away and she is undoubtedly the most intense moment in the movie: "I was seven years old at the time and we were on the field and about to start playing when my cousin approached me and Sadio told me, He died." , I replied, "Really? I thought he was joking, I really couldn't understand it."
Sadio Mani says: “Before his death he had been suffering from some kind of illness for weeks. We brought him traditional medicines that kept him calm for three or four months, but the disease came back again and this time he did not give the medicine, there was no hospital in our village (Bambali) So they had to take him to the next village to see if they could save his life. "
Sadio Mane adds: “When I was young, my father always told me that he was proud of me, he was a man with a big heart, and his death had a great impact on me and the rest of my family. I told myself that now I have to do my best to help my mother, to be In a similar situation when you are young, it is difficult. "
Mani's father was the imam of the mosque, so every year, on the anniversary of his death, family members gather to recite the Qur’an.
Sadio Mane failed to persuade his family to allow him to drop his education so that he could pursue his ambition to become a professional soccer player so he found no solution but to flee home at the age of 15 with the help of childhood friend Luke Gibbon.
He says, "It was difficult because there was no one pushing me to fulfill my dream but I never stopped chasing a dream. It was a brave decision to leave my family in the village and go to the capital, Dakar because I knew I could be successful, after that my family started taking it More seriously, they knew that I did not want to do anything other than soccer, they knew that they had no choice so they came to support me. "
In the Senegalese capital Dakar, specifically at the Generation Foot Academy, Mane's journey to stardom began after he scored four goals during a test match.
"I think they liked it," Sadio said in the film. "I scored goals under the eyes of the academy founder Madi Tori, who was then my father."
At the beginning of 2011, Sadio Mane starred and contracted with French club Metz, and then moved to the Austrian team, Red Bull Salzburg, after 18 months playing a major role in the race that qualified Senegal for the quarter-finals of the 2012 Olympic Games.
German coach Juergen Klopp remembers abandoning the idea of signing Sadio Mane when he was coach of Borussia Dortmund in 2014 after seeing how he wore a baseball cap.
Sadio Mane laughs as he remembers the incident, and says of Klopp: "He said I'm like a rapper, what can I say? This is part of life because you never know how to blend in with others but I think it was definitely wrong, it was an experience for me too I knew I should show him respect if we meet again. "
Klopp finally got his leg, and that was in 2016 after Manny scored four goals in three games against Liverpool for Southampton. In the documentary, Sadio Mane admired his coach Klopp as the footage shows that he drove his car to the latter's house after a wonderful victory in Barcelona in half UEFA Champions League Final.
Mane says of Klopp: "What makes him special is that he never stops believing in the capabilities of the players. In the meeting before that match he managed to really convince us of ourselves and that we could do the job even though we lost two of the best players in the world [Salah and Roberto Firmino], We motivated and he helped us relieve the pressure on us. "
The documentary shows the modest side of the player, especially when he addresses a group of young people outside of school and tells them that education is the key to success because the school comes first, and in order for you to go to work and you are in good health we must build a hospital.
The player adds: "Maybe if there was a better school when I was young I would have studied more, but now it is no longer the case I was in the village and all the kids there want to play soccer and no one wants to go to school, they just want to become Soccer players like me but I always tell them that they should be well educated and go to school. "
"Of course they can keep playing football because that will help you more to be successful in what you do if you do both together," he continues.
Sadio Mane is slated to open within six months a fully-funded hospital with the school he built in his village last year, and the main reason he wanted to build the hospital was the conditions surrounding his father’s death.
The World Bank estimates that 70% of families live in poverty, and Manny says: “I remember my sister was born inside too because there is no hospital in our village, it was a really sad situation for everyone, so I want to build a hospital to give hope to people.”