African champions Senegal will have to do without their superstar Sadio Mané at the World Cup in Qatar. The FC Bayern Munich striker will be out for the tournament, which begins on November 20, due to an injury to the head of his right fibula.
Mané is already in Innsbruck by Prof. Christian Fink and Dr. Andy Williams from London had a successful operation, as FC Bayern announced. During the procedure, a tendon was reattached to the right fibula head. Mané is scheduled to start his rehabilitation in Munich in the coming days. It is not known how long the 30-year-old will be out.
To the end, the Senegalese team had hoped that Mané could possibly enter the World Cup at a later date. But nothing came of it. “Unfortunately, today’s MRI has shown us that things are not going as well as we had imagined. We have therefore decided to declare Sadio’s withdrawal from the World Cup,” team doctor Manuel Afonso was quoted as saying on the Senegalese Twitter account.
Mané was injured in Bayern’s 6-1 Bundesliga win over Werder Bremen on November 8, but was still included in his home country’s World Cup squad. Africa’s Footballer of the Year is his country’s most important player. In Group A, Senegal meet the Netherlands on 21 November, followed by hosts Qatar and Ecuador as opponents.
