The Liverpool great is set to link up with Cristiano Ronaldo in Saudi Arabia after his disappointing year at Bayern Munich, who he joined last summer following six years with the Reds
The last time Sadio Mane shared a football pitch with Cristiano Ronaldo it said a lot about where both of their careers were heading.
Mane had been dropped to the bench for Liverpool’s trip to Manchester United in October 2021, no longer an automatic pick in a front three with Roberto Firmino and Mo Salah, and then watching on as his replacement Diogo Jota scored the second of Liverpool’s five unanswered goals. Salah got a hat-trick.
The Senegalese had appeared for the final quarter of an hour as Liverpool gleefully knocked the ball around a rapidly emptying Old Trafford, with a gloomy Ronaldo standing around and watching it happen, and although he’d soon be back in Jurgen Klopp’s team, it was a sign that Mane’s untouchable status for the bigger games had gone.
By the end of the season Mane was a fixture in the side again, playing well as a central striker with Luis Diaz on the left, but in the act of losing the Champions League final to Real Madrid there was an air of staleness about Liverpool.