It's nice to see Mane getting some time in the limelight again. He can get overshadowed sometimes, his hard work obscured by Bobby's relentless effort, his exceptional running, dribbling and shooting obscured by Salah's exquisite ruthlessness. Yet the combination of both work and wonder he provides puts him up there with the very best, and his selflessness in carrying out his manager's tactical requirements is an example to everyone.
But what really sets him apart is something that very few players - very few people - have. I remember Roald Dahl putting it beautifully in his story "the Swan":
"Some people, when they have taken too much and have been driven beyond the point of endurance, simply crumple and give up. There are others, though they are not many, who will for some reason always be unconquerable. You meet them in time of war and also in time of peace. They have an indomitable spirit and nothing, neither pain nor torture nor threat of death, will cause them to give up.
[Sadio Mane is] one of those."
The Champion's League final showed this indomitable spirit at its finest. With Salah off, at a goal down, with a lot of heads down - one head went up, stayed up and even went further up the worse the match got. That head, of course, belonged to Sadio Mane. He may not seem to have the most dominant personality, but, as Dahl makes clear, that isn't what determines the indomitable. It's something else, something deep inside that only comes out at the worst of times. And it's value at times like that is impossible to measure, but be thankful that we have it in our team, in a forward as talented as Sadio is. And it's a quality that I suspect we'll see a few more times in the pressure cooker environment of this title race.
