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Senegal is taking over football on the continent and is working as hard as, if not harder than the brilliant North African teams. Its first win at the U-20 AFCON is another milestone indicating a cross-generational, future story brewing. We will tell you a bit about it. 

Bamako Disappointment and the Golden Generation without Gold

On that sullen night in Bamako, the Malian capital, more than two decades ago, players of the Senegalese national team could not hold the bitterness that engulfed their souls. That pain that came from the AFCON final defeat to Cameroon transcended the length and breadth of Senegal, from Dakar to Thiès. It was a moment that looked like the crowning of the glory of a truly golden generation of footballers until the missed three spot kicks. What they never achieved despite their great reckoning was a truly golden moment in its unarguable essence.

That team, which had current Teranga Lions coach, Aliou Cisse as skipper failed to win any silverware despite making it to the quarterfinal of the World Cup at the first time of asking. Although there was no truly triumphant moment to celebrate, it revealed a future where everything is possible. 

The Senegalese team at the time produced real stars of the game including two-time African Player of the Year, El Hadji Diouf, Khalilou Fadiga, the late Papa Bouba Diop, Salif Diao, and others. It proved to be a generation that showed Senegal that the country could rule Africa if it settled its home. 

Following a strong streak in the early 2000s, the Senegalese team soon went back to what was, at the time, the status quo. They struggled to reproduce the impressive performances that came with the beginning of the new millennium and failed to qualify for the World Cup for three straight editions in 2006, 2010 and 2014.  They had been dragged back and needed fresh, daring, and futuristic ideas. 

Those failures proved to be the perfect pedestal for a future that will be dominant, brilliant, and worth understudying. 

The FA: Staying true to the game

Politics in Africa is a wild game. Those who can play are capable of more, including digging deeply into their mean streaks to achieve desired results. Everyone who is capable of leading a sports institution at any level is equally capable of playing its politics. 

What Augustyn Senghor, the current President of the Senegal Football Association and a renowned politician in the country, has done is a mixture of it all. Senghor is in his 14th year as the head of the Senegalese FA after emerging in 2009.

When necessary, he has pulled the plunger, but on most occasions, his patience has ensured that there is a strong grip at the helm at almost every level. 

The grand politics of Senegalese democracy is among the most stable in Africa, and Senghor sits right at the heart of a part of Senegalese social life that brings smiles to people’s faces. He worked to earn the people’s trust, and their consistent support has been the reward. He also has the strong backing of President Macky Sall.

Senghor and Senegal’s return to prominence coincided with Sall’s emergence as the current president, who was installed on April 2nd, 2012 as the fourth Senegalese President. He is also the first Senegalese President born after their independence from France. Such poetry. 

The Lions of Teranga had shocked the world ten years earlier at the World Cup when they achieved their independence on the pitch. In one of the most shocking results in the history of the World Cup, Senegal defeated then-champions France to announce themselves on the world football stage in grand style. 

There are a lot of people involved in this coronation of Senegal as the kings of African football. Presidents, players, the poor, and the rich have all been involved in what Senegalese football has now become. While they have had some rare, ingenious moments of individual brilliance to thank, it will be an incomplete without stating where the turnaround truly emerged from. 

Generation Foot: A pathway to the summit

Mady Toure had traversed Europe himself in search of better football opportunities. Although he played the game at a reasonable level, the desire to find special talents and take them to the waiting hands of European football fuelled his future ambition. That ambition birthed Generation Foot, a football academy that became a melting pot for future Senegalese football superstars. Nearly 23 years later, it is still making the future and moulding the present of Senegalese football.

From Sadio Mane to Ismaila Sarr, Generation Foot has a clear pathway for its products, and many of them have risen as brothers to achieve huge greatness. 

The products of the academy, which now has its own club, are many in the current national setup and have an overarching sense of nationhood and gratitude to a structure that ensured they could achieve their dreams. 

More than a decade after it was set up, the federation worked hard to plan for this kind of private investment in the country’s football future. Its mark had come to stay.

London Olympics: The coming of the future 

Joseph Koto had led Senegal to the 2012 African Nations Championship, where they emerged the winners and took one of Africa’s two tickets to the Olympics. Many of the top players on the current Senegalese team, like Saidio Mane, Cheikhou Kouyate, and others, featured in that competition. After the Olympics, Koto was asked to step aside while his assistant and former national team captain, Cisse, was appointed coach. He later became the senior national team coach, replacing Frenchman, Alain Giresse in 2015. Cisse’s appointment has been one of many decisions Senegal has stuck with through thick and thin. 

As the disappointment of missing out on the 2014 World Cup rocked, Cisse’s appointment sparked hope and direction, as he had been a part of the setting and understood the pressure points of his players. Backed by Senghor, he fell and rose, lost, and learnt through the failed AFCON tournaments until they made it to the finals in 2019 and lost to Algeria. It was clear Senegal was coming of age, and their painstakingly built team of talented footballers was beginning to yield good dividends as they matured.

The performance at the 2018 World Cup also showed that the players, officials, and people had more faith in their ability to do great things. They missed out on progressing out of the group at the 2018 World Cup only on fair play despite being in a relatively difficult group. 

A rapid roll through consistent good results saw the team finally conquer the continent in 2022. That marked the full coronation of a truly golden generation. One which would never leave doubts about the weight of its achievements and right at its heartbeat was a man who had been a part of the previous generations. That AFCON win in Algeria was the hallmark of a patiently built system of constant evolution. 

From Generation Foot to the growth of Senegalese football, even at the league level, there is a constant turnout of football talents. Players like Mane, who had no boots on his Generation Foot resumption, have become the vantage point of Senegalese football, a symbol of hope, and the bearer of the torch. When young Senegalese players see him and his efforts toward making the country a better place, they know if they work hard, they can make it through the ranks. 

The Senegalese team defeated neighbors Gambia on Saturday to emerge winners of the African Youth Championship for the first time, and further prove Senegal’s unflinching dominance of African football at the moment. Some of the players who featured in the equally victorious CHAN team in February were also in the triumphant U-20 team and will soon be members of the senior national team. It’s an endless pipeline of football talents. One partly fuelled by an individual passionate about the future of football in the country and a football federation that has seen the light in people and the quality of the dreams they carry. 

There are lessons for many African countries in the Senegalese story about the pains and rigours of patience and organisation. It’s never enough to have talents who can make a mark, like Nigeria greatly does. Arguably more important is a foundation that keeps their future safe, secure, and sound and helps them grow every step of the way. That will be going the Senegal way and keeping an eye on results even in the face of some cracks and blows along the way.