Génération Foot: Senegal's Footballing Factory

“Personally, I didn’t think he’d make it with us because he was too shy. It was as if he didn’t want to play”, recalled scout, Abdou Diatta to The Straits Times, when Sadio Mané’s showed up at Génération Foot with battered boots and shorts unsuitable for football. But after just 15 minutes of watching the 15-year-old, coach Jules Boucher claimed he “saw in him qualities of a high-class player, in his speed, his ability to dribble, his intensity and movement”. That is an eye for a player in its purest form. 

Since the inception of the academy in 2000, the key figures at Génération Foot have developed somewhat of a habit of nurturing their youth to reach levels unimaginable to them upon arrival in Dakar. With an intriguing philosophy of adopting players with little experience and large aspirations of reaching the heady heights of European football, their intentions have been clear and candid from the start. Even still, no one quite believed the club would eclipse the cognizance of Senegalese football in the way they have. 

Such certain criteria for success, that initially appeared suspicious to some, can only be born out of one thing: trial and error. Mady Touré, the founder of Génération Foot, had tried his own hand at football in Europe, playing in France throughout the 1990s before his career was cut short due to injury. 

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