Sadio Mane: I've donated 300 Liverpool shirts to my home village in Senegal for the Champions League final

If Sadio Mané walks off the pitch at the NSC Olimpiyskiy on Saturday night as a Champions League winner, at some point during a long night of celebrations, his thoughts will turn back to his home village of Bambali in south Senegal.

Mané has sent 300 Liverpool shirts to his place of birth so that those he grew up with can watch him and his team-mates take on Real Madrid while sporting the same shade of red.

It was there too that the winger, one third of the devastating front three that has brought Jürgen Klopp’s side to Kiev, remembers watching Liverpool’s last European Cup triumph back in 2005.
Mané was a Barcelona fan then and so a neutral observer on the night but his Liverpool-supporting friend Youssouph Diatta was watching with him – for the first half, at least.