World Cup column: Ismaïla Sarr steps out of Mané’s shadow to help Senegal make amends for 2018
It can be hard to remember now given the events that came to pass, but in those final, halcyon days before the first Covid-19 lockdowns in Europe, the whole of England was talking about Ismaïla Sarr.
On 29 February 2020, a then 21-year-old Sarr scored two wonderfully taken goals against eventual Premier League champions Liverpool for Watford in a 3-0 win that ended hopes of an unbeaten season for Jürgen Klopp’s men – a highpoint for the Hornets in a season that would ultimately end in relegation.
Registering a brace against the team top of the table in the most watched domestic football league in the world was always going to significantly raise the profile of the Senegalese forward. Transfer links to both Liverpool and Manchester United became a permanent feature of the transfer windows that immediately followed.
But nearly three years later, Sarr is still playing his football for Championship Watford having already spent an entire season in the second tier in the meantime.
Whether it be due to his determination to remain loyal to the club that launched his career in England, or potential suitors simply do not see him as quite the talent his early promise suggested he was, it can sometimes feel as though Sarr’s time in the limelight has already been and gone.
He produced 23 goal involvements in his last season in the Championship as Watford secured automatic promotion, and still hit five goals last term as a miserable side were once again relegated, but links to the world’s most fashionable clubs have dried up.
International football can often provide a platform for forgotten about players to provide a reminder of just how exceptionally gifted they really are. Enner Valencia is now out of this World Cup, partly due to Sarr, but will still feature in the final golden boot standings thanks to his three goals in the group stage. However, despite now having 50 caps for his country, Sarr’s relationship with Senegal has not been particularly straightforward.
An injury row between club and country meant he only featured in three games during Senegal’s victorious Africa Cup of Nations campaign earlier this year, but it is the looming figure of national team captain Sadio Mané that has arguably played the biggest role in halting Sarr’s progress.
This is of course understandable. Mané has scored more than 200 goals in a ten-year career in Europe, Sarr has scored just over 50. Mané holds the record for most goals in history of the Senegal national team, Sarr has 11 goals for his country. It would be rather outlandish to suggest that Aliou Cissé should be starting the younger man ahead of a national icon on the left of the attack.
At the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Sarr played all three games as Cissé’s side went out in the group stage. The winger started and finished the matches with Poland, Japan and Colombia on the right flank. Although this has also been his regular position at Watford, he has proven to be a far more influential presence on the left so far in Qatar. This position is usually occupied by captain Mané, hardly a surprise given the success he enjoyed playing a similar role for Liverpool.
Mané started the opening two games in Russia on the left before being moved into a more central position for Senegal’s final game against Colombian. Across those three games, the now Bayern Munich forward scored once from a single shot on target, made six key passes and completed 33% of the dribbles he attempted.
There is every chance that Mané would have given a better account of himself, a more accurate representation of the joyous handprint he has left on European club football, this tournament had he not ruptured a tendon in his fibula playing for Bayern less than two weeks before Senegal’s opening Group A fixture against the Netherlands. His absence has increased Sarr’s prominence within the Senegal team and, as a result, within this World Cup.
So far, Sarr has matched Mané’s one shot on target and one goal from 2018, made five key passes and has completed 47% of the dribbles he has attempted in helping Senegal reach the knockout stages for the first time since 2002. The maturity he showed in stepping up and taking the most nonchalant of penalties to open the scoring in Tuesday’s decisive win against Ecuador was that of an individual comfortable in themselves and with their role within a team.
Improving on Mané was never likely to be possible for manager Cissé, but in adapting Sarr’s role he has found an accurate imitation. A meeting with England on Sunday in the Last 16 means the Watford man could be the talk of not only Senegal but also his adopted home once more.
