Afcon 2022: With Liverpool, Chelsea and PSG as their finishing school, Senegal finally look ready to win

Burkina Faso 1-3 Senegal (Toure 82′ | Diallo 70′, Gueye 76′, Mane’ 87)

AHMADOU AHIDJO STADIUM — Senegal consider winning this tournament to be their destiny. The Afcon finals in 2002 and 2019, the quarter-finals in 2017, final group games in 2015 and the World Cup of 2018, when they promised so much and delivered so little.

They will celebrate this tournament on its own merit, the joy that comes with sitting atop your continent. But this is also payback for previous underachievement.

Destiny can weigh you down. The pressure of being Africa’s highest-ranked team and yet without winning its most eminent tournament can be suffocating. On the other side of the draw are Cameroon and Egypt with their 12 trophies, casting a shadow over Aliou Cissé’s squad. Senegal’s coach has repeatedly insisted that his players are calm. Back home, a country waited for proof.

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The first 30 minutes of most matches in Afcon 2021 have been a little cagey. The reasons for that have shifted: in the first week managers instructed risk-averse football after little pre-tournament preparation time and reasoned that four points would be enough to qualify. In the knockout stages, the magnitude of the gap between success and failure tends to incentivise circumspection.

Mercifully, this quarter-final was far different. After finally spring cleaning the remnants of their attacking bluntness during the quarter-final against Equatorial Guinea, Senegal had clearly been told to maintain that intensity. But Burkina Faso too played with little fear. Perhaps they reasoned that sitting back was simply to invite irrepressible pressure; perhaps they were simply not scared.

Or perhaps their pre-match promises to give those back home something joyous to believe in were considerably more than platitudes. Kamou Malo’s team at least tried to give as good as they got.

With Sadio Mané and Saliou Ciss combining down Senegal’s left and Bertrand Traoré the repeated escape route for a Burkina Faso team intent on counter- attacking, the pitch felt slanted from one touchline to the other.

This was not a mirage either, a false promise of drama. In the immediate aftermath of Senegal being awarded a penalty, there seemed little controversy – goalkeeper misses ball and punches defender. Five slow-motion replays later and it was far harder to prove guilt, and Herve Koffi escaped. Advantage Burkina Faso? Not when Koffi was carried off on a stretcher.

If the penalty/non-penalty hokey-cokey was open to interpretation – and argument – Adama Guira’s yellow card shortly before was more emphatically total nonsense. Not because it wasn’t worthy of a booking, but it was Guira’s second in six matches and he would have missed the final.

Some rules are open to reasoned debate. Whoever believes it appropriate to cause a player to miss the biggest match of his career for two mild misdemeanours is a fool.

Edmond Tapsoba came close to following him after the second penalty incident of the first half, but Burkinabe dreams were again saved by technological intervention. This was a little more clear: it would have been extraordinarily harsh on Tapsoba for handball with his arms tucked in by his side and his back turned.

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Yet for all Burkina Faso’s intent, their freedom of expression and their refreshing exuberance, there is an inevitability to Senegal’s progress now. There were 26 players at the start of this tournament who had flown in from clubs ranked in the top three of the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A or Ligue 1. Twenty-three of the 24 nations shared 17 of those players; Senegal alone had nine.

And that matters. These elite clubs are not simply a resting place for wonderful natural talent; they are a classroom. You learn how to prepare mentally for high-profile games, how to visualise your success, how to manage mid-game adversity, when – to quote that great poet John Barnes – to hold and give at the right time.

Senegal were slow starters in Cameroon. You might even argue that they have been highly fortunate to land in a half of the draw that produced Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea and Burkina Faso as knockout opponents. But there were excuses for that sluggishness: Édouard Mendy, Nampalys Mendy and Kalidou Koulibaly all missed the opening two matches with Covid-19. Cissé asked for patience.

And patience has been rewarded, or maybe class has simply won out. Senegal’s elite players have stepped up as Cissé was always sure they would. Sadio Mané, whose deft finish clinched victory, has come alive in the last two rounds. Chelsea goalkeeper Mendy has conceded twice in six matches and been protected by a defence that contains component parts from Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Napoli.

Their three semi-final goals were scored by those who call Liverpool and PSG, and the latter stages of the Champions League, their home. Senegal were favourites on 6 January; they will be favourites on 6 February. Their final, and their final day of destiny, is coming.

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