And suddenly the Senegalese started a strange race. Not to begin a final counter-attack or to return to annihilate a final Moroccan offensive, but to celebrate the final whistle; a race towards nowhere, disordered and improvised, like a meeting with a cacophonous outcome.
Even the presentation of the trophy was something offbeat: in a stadium which was three-quarters empty in a few minutes, Pape Thiaw, Kalidou Koulibaly and Sadio Mané gathered around the trophy for a slight moment of hesitation, before the latter finally lifted the trophy in a shower of confetti. The players then rushed to scrape their knees on the pitch in order to celebrate their title in front of their kop of supporters, the Twelfth Gaïndé, some members of whom had jumped the railing leading to the pitch to enter the pitch in the most complete cacophony at the moment of the penalty being whistled.
Celebrations which sum up the improbable course of the meeting from the 90th minute, when the players decided to leave the pitch to contest two refereeing decisions which they considered unfair: the goal refused to Ismaïla Sarr for a foul by Abdoulaye Seck on Achraf Hakimi, and the sanction at 11 meters pronounced by Jean-Jacques Ndala Ngambo for contact between Malick Diouf and Brahim Diaz.
“It was scandalous what we were experiencing”
“We didn’t understand why when we scored the VAR didn’t even contact him, while on the other side he requested the intervention of the VAR. It was scandalous what we were experiencing,” said the second goalkeeper of the Téranga Lions Yehvann Diouf in the mixed zone to explain why the team chose to return to the locker room. “We were very frustrated. We had a human reaction to this injustice,” adds his teammate Mamadou Sarr.
“These kinds of messages are not a pretty sight”
“But after reflection we said to ourselves that in any case we had to return to the field, accept what we had come for and finish the match,” says Diouf. A turnaround notably initiated by Sadio Mané, named best player of the CAN. “It would have been really sad to see African football like this [si les Sénégalais n’avaient pas rejoint la pelouse]that would have been unacceptable. I just tried to do what is good for both countries,” says the Al-Nassr winger. “African football is developing in an incredible way, it is followed all over the world. These kinds of messages are not pretty to see,” says Mané.
It was then on the pitch that his teammate Pape Gueye wanted to express a reaction of pride by guiding a powerful left-footed strike from the edge of the area into Yassine Bounou’s top corner. “I thought about the injustice, I thought about the country. It’s a deserved victory, so it was the goal of the deliverance,” reports the Villarreal midfielder, who won the man of the match trophy after scoring the first Senegalese goal in four Africa Cup of Nations finals.
Three players in hospital after feeling unwell
The native of Montreuil also mentions as a source of motivation the absence at kick-off of three players (Crépin Diatta, Pape Matar Sarr and Ousseynou Niang) who would have felt unwell before the match. “This victory is for them, we had that in mind,” confides Gueye. “They are in hospital, but I hope they are well,” adds Lamine Camara, winner of his third continental trophy after winning the African Nations Championship in 2022 and the U20 CAN in 2023. “A lot of things happened before the match for Crépin, Pape and Ousseynou,” insists Ismaïl Jakobs when asked about the reasons for the tense moments observed on the pitch. “You will be able to find it,” he adds without giving further details.
The usual captain Koulibaly, suspended this Sunday, preferred to insist on the reaction capacity of his partners in an enclosure almost entirely committed to the cause of the Atalas Lions. “When you play in front of such a hostile audience, it’s very difficult. We showed a lot of control,” praises the central defender of Al-Hilal. Despite the celebration somewhat spoiled by the anxiety-provoking atmosphere at the end of the match, his teammate Mané, already titled four years ago, savors this second star. “In 2021, I did not yet have a wife or children. Now I’m going to celebrate with my wife and child, so it’s even more special. The joy is incredible,” concludes Mané, an adjective which corresponds well to the scenario of the meeting which sealed Senegal’s second continental coronation, and which Africa will not soon forget.
