Sadio Mane beats Liverpool teammate Salah as Senegal win the 2021 African Cup of Nations

Senegal player Sadio Mane has finally managed to get his hands on the African cup of Nations trophy this time as Senegal defeated Egypt in the final on penalties. The Liverpool forward was the man to score the decisive penalty into the bottom left corner as his team won 4-2 on penalties after the score was 0-0 at the end of extra time. Mohammad Salah was planning to take the decisive penalty for his national team but couldn’t even the chance to take it after two of his teammates missed their respective penalties before him.

This is Senegal’s maiden AFCON title win after losing in two finals before in this tournament. Sadio Mane was inconsolable the last time Senegal lost in the final and even said that he would exchange all of his winnings if he gets to win the African Cup for his nation once. The Senegalese skipper rushed to his team after scoring the winning penalty but later on went back to console his Liverpool teammate and friend Mohammad Salah who was in tears after the loss.

Chelsea and Senegal goalkeeper Edouard Mendy showed some heroics to save one of the penalties in the shootout and was full of joy after winning the shootout. He said “We are proud. We never won before. We worked really hard to win this trophy and today we won as a group, as a country.”

The game was not as exciting as people would’ve hoped considering two teams who had never won the tournament were pitted against each other. Also, the Mane vs Salah debate had raised some heat before the final. However, there was drama in the final in the starting minutes when Senegal were awarded a penalty in the seventh minute. It was pretty evident that their star man Mane was going to take the spot-kick which is why Mohammad Salah went to the keeper to give him some hint as to where the Senegalese forward would hit the penalty. Mane being irritated by this even pointed to the right of the goal to tease the goalkeeper. As the referee blew the whistle for the kick, Mane blasted it in the middle but the kick was eventually saved by the keeper which kept the score to 0-0.

The Egypt team were also playing this final without their coach Carlos Queiroz on the sidelines as the Portuguese was given a red card in the semi-finals due to which the coach had to watch the game from the stands with a phone to direct his ideas to the technical staff. It was also a special moment for Senegal’s coach Aliou Cisse who himself had missed the decisive penalty and lost the shootout with Senegal in 2002 against Cameroon. He also expressed his joy and said “Champion of Africa, it’s been long. It’s been difficult. Sometimes complicated. But we never gave up.”