Twenty-four years later, the France team will meet Senegal for its first match of the 2026 World Cup in North America (June 11-July 19), on June 16 in New York. The previous clash with the Lions of Teranga was a real nightmare for the 1998 world champions and winners of Euro 2000. Deprived of Zinédine Zidane, injured a few days earlier, Roger Lemerre’s players fell in the opening match of the tournament organized in South Korea and Japan (1-0).
Mamadou Niang was then a young striker from Troyes and was not selected by Bruno Metsu for the World Cup. But he supported his teammates like crazy, first during this feat against the France team. For the former star player of OM, who became one of the stars of the Gaïndés (58 matches until 2012, 20 goals), Senegal in 2002 was simply better, individually speaking, than the current team, which is nevertheless led by Sadio Mané who was close to the Ballon d’Or during his
prime in Liverpool.
“Collectively perhaps, individually no. I think there were a lot more individual qualities in 2002. Of course! There were players like El-Hadji Diouf who performed well in Lens, Khalilou Fadiga who had great seasons with Auxerre, Papa Bouba Diop who was a very, very great midfielder, Salif Diao.thus launched Niang in the Late Football Clubon Canal+.
Diouf’s Senegal against Mané’s
The sequence published on X.com panicked Senegalese supporters and followers of African football. It’s a fact, the 2002 team was much less equipped with very high level players. They all played in French D1. None in La Liga or the Premier League for example. Mamad Niang’s comments created a surprise on the set of Late and the retiree thus justified himself when the presenter of the show, Nicolas Tourriol, took the example of Sadio Mané and Iliman Ndiaye.
“I think Iliman hasn’t reached Khalilou’s level yet. Sadio is fighting with El-Hadji Diouf. Afterwards, in midfield, there is quality with Gana Gueye, who has a lot of experience, but we still had Salif Diao at the time (who played at Sedan, editor’s note)Aliou Cissé who was really the leader in midfield”argued Niang, before concluding: “In terms of individual qualities, I think the 2002 team was perhaps a little better, in terms of collective quality, I think the 2025 team is much more complete than 2002.”
