Sadio Mane still plays a pivotal part despite not being the main man in Senegal's win over Poland

Matt Jones - Editor 22:04 19/06/2018
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  • Senegal claimed the first win for an African team at this year’s World Cup as they earned a 2-1 triumph against Poland in Moscow.

    Everton’s Idrissa Gueye opened the scoring in the first half although his effort took a huge deflection off the unfortunate Thiago Cionek. They doubled their advantage after the break, but in controversial circumstances when Mbaye Niang sprinted back on to the field of play after injury and immediately intercepted Grzegorz Krychowiak’s woeful backpass, before beating goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny to slot home.

    Krychowiak’s fine header late on made the last few minutes interesting but Senegal held on.

    Here, we analyse the performance of Senegal skipper and Liverpool wideman, Sadio Mane.

    STATISTICS

    Goals – 0

    Assists – 1

    Shots – 1

    Shots on target – 0

    Touches – 39

    Passes – 37

    Key passes – 2

    Dribbles – 1

    Dispossessed – 0

    30-SECOND REPORT

    He is without doubt Senegal’s star man, but Mane had to play more of a support act rather than his usual role of leading man. But he was happy to do his bit for the team – an impish bit of skill midway through the first half not only livened up the game, but Mane too. A beautiful pirouette when receiving the ball in a tight situation instantly turned defence into attack for the Africans.

    GOT RIGHT

    Understated impact – Found himself a little on the periphery here, especially in the first half, but the lively Liverpool wideman still had a telling impact on proceedings. After switching briefly to a central role he received the ball off Niang after a fine run from the lively Torino forward and teed up Idrissa Gueye for his fortunate opener.

    GOT WRONG

    Utilising speed – For a man blessed with such searing speed, he struggled to assert his dominance over a Poland team whose midfield and defence is hardly blessed with pace. Mane was up against a 33-year-old right-back and 32-year-old right midfielder in Lukasz Piszczek and Jakub Blaszczykowski, but was unable to take advantage of his obvious talents and Poland’s plodding defence.

    VERDICT

    He’s had bigger impacts in games, and surely will feature more prominently as the tournament progresses, but he never shirked responsibility. In fact he went in search of work in the centre of the pitch towards the end of the half as he wasn’t having much impact from wide on the left – and that move paid off immediately as he set up the crucial opening goal.

    RATING: 7/10

    All statistics are compiled using whoscored.com

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