One of those facts not told and restated as often as it should in the media is Sadio Mane’s place in the record books as the man with the fastest hat trick in the English premiership history. In a 2015 game against Aston Villa, while playing for Southampton Sadio scored three goals in 2 blistering minutes 56 seconds beating Robbie Fowler’s record set in 1999.
And even if all he’s done is on account of this, the man should have some major chip (more like boulder) on his shoulder. He clearly doesn’t. If anything, he’s ever the picture of humility, deigning to do what most superstars his range would not even imagine. One of those images that went viral recently was when he helped pick some cases of bottled water that some heavily burdened Teranga Lions of Senegal official needed to move. It was a no biggie for him.
Aside that is his large heart for things connected to people from his roots. He’s so deeply Senegalese and wants nothing more than for his people to make greater progress. So, rather than engage in the excess typical of new money folks, Sadio painstakingly invests in his people. By his own admission, he didn’t go to school. So, for so that his kinsmen can do better in that area, he is building a $300,000 school in Bamballi the village he hails from.
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Some would put his largesse down to the fact that he earns £100,000 a week at Liverpool, a club where he has consistently stayed the main goal poacher alongside Mo Salah, his Egyptian team mate. The lethal African strike force is inching gradually towards helping Liverpool win the premiership for the first time in a long time.
The hunger in Mane’s game is reflective of the hunger he suffered as a child. “I was hungry, and I had to work in the field; I survived hard times, played football barefoot, I did not have an education and many other things, but today with what I win thanks to football, I can help my people”.
“Why would I want ten Ferraris, twenty diamond watches, or two planes? What will these objects do for me and for the world?” Mane asks, perplexed.
What he does is for so that a lot more people would be part of the fortune dished him by Providence and the proverbial dint of hard work: “I built schools, a stadium; we provide clothes, shoes, food for people who are in extreme poverty. In addition, I give 70 euros per month to all people in a very poor region of Senegal which contributes to their family economy.
Did you read that? “70 euros per month to all people”… The man is a de facto government that his people look up to for their needs to be met every month. Fortunately for the people of Bamballi and beyond in Senegal, they have a man who does not “need to display luxury cars, luxury homes, trips and even planes. I prefer that my people receive a little of what life has given me.”
That is why we cannot but give it up for Mane, the diligent, responsible son of Africa. Oh, for more Manes!
