Sadio Mane, Senegal’s striker, has explained why he asked his teammates to return to the pitch and continue playing against Morocco in the AFCON final on Sunday night.
Senegal overcame Morocco 1-0 after 120 minutes to win the AFCON.
Senegal won their second AFCON championship with the solitary goal of the match coming in the first half of extra time from Pape Gueye.
However, the contest was delayed at the conclusion of the second half when the referee gave the Atlas Lions a late penalty for a foul on Brahim Diaz.
However, the whole Senegalese squad was dissatisfied with the referee’s ruling and chose to leave the pitch.
Mane was then caught on camera urging his teammates back to the pitch to continue playing against the AFCON host country.
During his post-game interview, Mane stated why he opted to bring his teammates back to the pitch.
“When they [my teammates] decided to go out and not play, I stayed and asked some people ‘what do you think about this, is it a good idea or not?’” Mane said.
“Then, I decided to go and bring everyone back to the pitch. I think it is the best thing to do. Because this is just football, I think the referee sometimes can make mistakes, but you can also be just, we don’t know, we are just in the game.
“People in the world can judge this, I don’t know, I think it could be a penalty or not. That is not important; what is more important is about the world watching this football, and it is not fair to stop a game like this.”
