Former Senegalese international, Diomansy Kamara, has advised Liverpool forward Sadio Mane to leave the Reds for Real Madrid if he wants to win Ballon d’ Or in the near future. Kamara believes Mane, who came fourth behind Lionel Messi, Virgil van Dijk and Cristiano Ronaldo in the voting for last year’s Ballon d’Or, cannot fulfil his potentials if he remains at Anfield.
Mane has emerged into one of the top footballers in the world since he joined Liverpool from Southampton in 2016. The 27-year-old led his country, Senegal to a second-place finish at the 2019 AFCON in Egypt. He also won the 2019 African Best Player for last year ahead of Algeria captain Riyad Mahrez.
“If Mane wants to win the Ballon d’Or one day, then he may have to leave Liverpool as the club are maybe not the best advocates for him, despite their outstanding performances,” Kamara told ESPN.
“He needs to continue on the road he is going down, as he was not too far from finishing on the podium, and even for me, he may deserve to win it this year. Now he needs to continue to work, and maybe even change clubs because we have seen that Liverpool does not play to Mane’s strengths and people gave their votes to Van Dijk even though Mane and to a lesser extent Mohamed Salah were equally in the running.”
“Considering his value in the market, considering the quality of the team he is playing for, there are not many other clubs he could go to today to make a major leap,” He continued.
“So we have to talk about Real Madrid. His playing style is a bit closer to the criteria Madrid are looking for over there, and if I were his agent, I would take him to Spain’s capital. We all dream of seeing Sadio Mane in the colours of Real Madrid, and we know that manager, Zinedine Zidane appreciates him, but will it become a reality? We will have to see.”