Senegal coach Pape Thiau cannot be accused of lacking ambition for the upcoming North American World Cup.
After a match in March, he said: “If I had any doubt for a second whether we could win the World Cup with Senegal, then I would step back.”
Recommended stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
This statement was notable for two reasons.
First, he has publicly stated that an African team can win the World Cup. Secondly, the fact that they are not ridiculed for saying so speaks volumes about the respect that the Senegalese national team enjoys from the world of football.
Babacar Diarra, a French-Senegalese freelance journalist, told Al Jazeera: “Those were not just empty words. Both the players and the coach believe they can win the World Cup.”
“However, the first game (against France) will tell us a lot about how good this team really is.”
On the African continent, no one needs to be convinced of Senegal’s quality. They are Africa’s most consistent national team and simple statistics back that up. Over the past decade, Senegal have either won every African Cup of Nations (AFCON) they have participated in or lost to the eventual champions.
The only recent disappointment has been at the World Cup, but there are circumstances that can be mitigated.
In 2018, the West Africans earned so many spots in the group stage that they became the first team in the tournament’s history to be eliminated due to fair play tie-breaks. At the 2022 Qatar tournament, Senegal, who played without injured star player Sadio Mane, were eliminated by England in the last 16.
“This is the perfect time for the golden generation of players like Sadio Mane, Kalidou Koulibaly, Idrissa Gana Gueye and Edouard Mendy. It’s now or never,” Diarra said.
The key to Senegal’s success lies in smart diaspora recruitment and a fertile but controversial local academy.
For a country of just 20 million people, Senegal produces an unparalleled pool of talented young footballers on the continent. It falls short of much larger countries such as Nigeria (estimated population of 242 million), Ethiopia (138 million), Egypt (120 million) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (117 million).
Over the past few decades, Senegal has opened several state-of-the-art academies with pristine training grounds, dormitories, schools, and physical therapy facilities. Every year, they send several players to Europe’s top five leagues.
Of the 28 players selected by Senegal for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, 13 were from Senegalese academies such as Generation Foot, Dianbal, Dakar Sacre Coeur and Casa Sport. However, while these academies are excellent for national teams, some appear to be exploitative within their facilities.
Dianbars had partnerships with Olympique Marseille, Dakar Sacre-Coeur and Olympique Lyonnais (both now ended), but the most memorable relationship is the long-standing one between Generation Foot and FC Metz. It’s a 23-year deal in which the Mets pay more than 10 million euros ($11.6 million) to build and operate the Generation Foot Academy, in exchange for which they retain the right to refuse top talent.
Players like Mane come from Metz through the Generation Foot academy, along with former Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor, Crystal Palace winger Ismaila Sarr and Tottenham midfielder Pape Matar Sarr.
But a closer look at the numbers surrounding these business relationships is infuriating. The 13 AFCON players from the academy earned just 100,000 euros (approximately $116,000) in transfer fees from 13 transfers at their respective academies.
The European club that originally acquired them sold them to turn these investments into a total of 81.2 million euros (approximately $94 million). These players earned a total of 411 million euros (approximately $477 million) in transfer fees during their careers. Income inequality is increasingly recognized as a significant economic injustice.
“On the one hand, young people benefit from good education and access to the best infrastructure,” explains Mamadou Ndiaye, a staunch supporter of the national team who has followed them in three AFCON tournaments.
“But we must remember that the investors funding the academy are businessmen, not the federation or the government. They know there is talent here, they put money in, they capture the ‘raw materials’, they refine them and sell them to Europe,” he told Al Jazeera.
In addition to these economic imbalances, some academies are also struggling to claim legally required joint and several compensation, a FIFA system that entitles clubs to a percentage of future transfer fees for players they develop between the ages of 12 and 23, due to mismanagement at federation level.
When Nicholas Jackson moved from Villarreal to Chelsea in the summer of 2023 for 37 million euros (about $43 million), his former club and academy Casa Sport was expected to pay 185,000 euros (about $215,000).
Sherif Sadio, director of Casa Sports Academy at the time, told Al Jazeera English: “Due to errors in player registration at federation level, Casa Sports was largely deprived of the revenue it was rightfully owed to the clubs.”
“Casa Sport was ultimately able to resolve the administrative issues in order to get back what they were legally entitled to. These situations have since been fortunately resolved, but this should never have happened in the first place.”
Sadio currently works as Director of Development, Strategy and Partnerships at Dianbal FC and maintains that the gap between the elite of Senegalese men’s football and the rest of the country’s football remains a serious problem.
“This is the most obvious contradiction in Senegalese football and it is worth stating clearly,” he said.
“We produce world-class players, develop talent that generates hundreds of millions of euros in transfer fees, and win continental titles. And at the same time, local clubs struggle to survive, stadiums age, leagues lack name recognition, and managers struggle to master the legal and financial mechanics of modern football.”
Targeting the diaspora
In addition to producing talent through its academies, Senegal can recruit from a rich talent pool in the Western European diaspora.
In recent months, the federation has persuaded 18-year-old French-born Paris Saint-Germain forward Ibrahim Mbaye and 20-year-old Chelsea defender Mamadou Sarr to represent Teranga Lions, despite both having previously represented France at Under-20 level.
Just a few years ago, Senegal was hurt when Aston Villa midfielder Boubacar Camara turned down the chance to play in the 2022 World Cup, choosing instead to compete for a spot in the French team. Convincing players of Mbaye and Sarr’s caliber to join Senegal shows that the federation’s approach to recruiting talent has matured considerably.
“The federation’s policy is based on three different pillars,” Sadio explains. “Firstly, they target diaspora athletes between the ages of 16 and 19 before they are bound to another country.
“The second point has to do with identity. Although they were born in countries such as France or England, they often grow up in Senegalese families where the culture, language and values are inherited, and the federation uses this to its advantage.
“Thirdly, Senegal’s recent successes strengthen the attractiveness of this project, aligning ambitions and identities, and making the choice of Senegal a personal and sporting advantage.”
As a result, 36-year-old Dakar-born Idrissa Gana Guye will be able to play alongside 18-year-old Trapps-born Ibrahim Mbaye in a team that is a dynamic mix of experienced and up-and-coming players, local and diaspora talent.
It is this combination that gives coach Pape Thiau the right to be confident.
