Senegal captain Kalidou Koulibaly revealed that their injured friend Sadio Mane is helping the team even if he’s not playing. Any help is welcome ahead of the must-win match against Qatar.The former Napoli centre-back revealed on Thursday that Sadio is in charge of the team spirit despite not actually being with the AFCON champions.”Sadio is always texting with us, always calling us, always keeping the mentality high for the team. Even if he is not with us in Qatar, he is sticking with all of the players, whichis really important for us. That’s the good spirit and mentality we need. We hope he will continue to support us. When he speaks, I think all of Senegal is listening. I speak every day with him, and for this, I am really happy.”Koulibaly on Mane: “Even if he’s not here with us he’s speaking to us; we know how important he is and this is a good spirit and mentality which is good for us. We know he will continue being behind us. When he speaks all Senegalese listen and I speak to him daily”.#FIFAWorldCup pic.twitter.com/DxXtAliYlT— Eric Njiru (@EricNjiiru) November 24, 2022 There isn’t much wiggle room at the World Cup. When you lose your first group stage match, the pressure increases to the maximum. Such is the situation with Senegal, who fell to a 2-0 defeat against Oranje – partly because of two goalkeeping errors by Edouard Mendy.Koulibaly said that his Chelsea teammate wouldn’t let one match disrupt him – and urged everyone to stop “making a mountain out of a molehill”.”We do speak a lot, we play at the same club, and we are brothers in arms for Senegal. Edouard is a very important player for us, it is normal to go through difficult phases. We are making a mountain out of a molehill here. He knows what he needs to do tomorrow, and the rest of the team do as well and we are going to try to put everything together to pull something out of the bag.”##NAJAVA_MECA_6834087##Senegal will face the hosts on Friday. It’s a perfect chance to get the team’s confidence levels back up against the worst team participating in the tournament. Three points and a quality show would do wonders for Mendy and the rest of the group. Unity will be paramount for Aliou Cisse’s men, says Koulibaly.”When a team loses, it’s not down to one player, but the whole team. We will do everything we can to change this, but I don’t think we should be making a big deal of this. I am not worried, I know Edouard will be on top of his game tomorrow.”🇲🇦x🇸🇳 Moroccan fans met a Senegalese in Qatar and started to pay tribute to Sadio Mané!Beautiful ❤️#Qatar2022onMG pic.twitter.com/nl5mROjzBI— Owuraku Ampofo (@_owurakuampofo) November 20, 2022 After Cameroon’s 1-0 defeat to Switzerland on Thursday, African sides are yet to score in this tournament. And even if Ghana find the net against Portugal, the Senegalese must use their chance and fill up the Qatari net. It would be useful to win by as many goals as possible in case goal difference determines who makes it to the second round. Ecuador beat the hosts 2-0, so it’s the minimum target for Cisse’s side.
