Didier Drogba posted on Instagram ‘what a suspense’ after Liverpool’s Sadio Mane scored the winning penalty to fire Senegal to the Africa Cup of Nations title win over Egypt on Sunday.
The build-up to the final was mainly on Liverpool’s attacking duo – Mane and Mo Salah – and whether or not they could guide their respective teams to glory.
And it just had to come down to Mane scoring the decisive spot-kick to lead his country to their first-ever AFCON title.
After 120 minutes couldn’t separate both Senegal and Egypt, with both sides failing to score, it came down to another penalty shootout.
Leading up to the final, Carlos Queiroz’s side had won two shootouts and were hoping to be lucky at the third time of asking.
But it wasn’t meant to be, with Salah not even getting the chance to take a spot-kick as Mane, who saw his penalty saved in normal time, stepping up and scoring the most important kick in Senegal’s footballing history.
After the game, this is what Ivory Coast and Premier League legend, Drogba, had to say about the final and the nerve-racking ending.
“Wow, what a suspense,” said Drogba. “Congratulations to the Senegalese people who make history with their first victory in the AFCON.
“Congratulations to the @pharaohsofficial (Egypt) for this beautiful journey and to the @fecafootofficiel (hosts Cameroon) for this beautiful celebration of African football.”
There’s no doubt that Mane is going to enjoy his journey back to Merseyside a lot better than Salah.
The Liverpool speedster was in tears after Mane scored his spot-kick and it’s a trophy that he has clearly craved the most in his career.
In truth, throughout this tournament and in the final itself, Senegal deserved the win because they were the best team during these past few weeks.
And to top it all off, for someone like Mane, he also ended up winning the player of the tournament, which just wraps up a perfect tournament for the player.
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