Mane left Liverpool team-mate speechless with training behaviour before leaving

Sadio Mane will be remembered as a Liverpool legend on the pitch. But it appears how he acted away from the match-day cameras also had a big effect on his team-mates, as Billy Koumetio has revealed.

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Mane won the Champions League and Premier League, among other trophies, during his six-year spell at Anfield. He scored 120 goals in 269 appearances before leaving for Bayern Munich in the summer of 2022.

He felt the time was right to take up a new adventure in Germany. That didn’t go quite to plan, as he has already left to move to Saudi Pro League club Al-Nassr.

But Mane has clearly left a lasting effect on the players he left behind at Liverpool. Young defender Koumetio was just 19 when the forward quit Merseyside for Munich.

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However, he has revealed how he was left stunned by Mane’s work ethic on the training ground. Koumetio, who is spending this season on loan at USL Dunkerque, says the 31-year-old’s behaviour was an inspiration.

He told the Liverpool Echo: “Sadio is always the one who was there before everybody. He works really hard. I came also early one time, but not as early as Sadio, so I was seeing him working in the gym. I was like, ‘Wow! He is working in the gym already.’

“This is the time when people come in and go to eat, but he’s not eating. He’s there, working in the gym. ‘Wow’. He was doing sit-ups, and sit-ups, and sit-ups. ‘Wow’.

“I went to get changed and went to get something quickly to eat. Came back to the changing room, and then went to join him in the gym. I saw him working, and then the squad came 30-45 minutes afterwards, and he was still working there! He was the last to go out of there. ‘Wow.'”

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Koumetio became the youngest Liverpool player to feature in the Champions League when he made his debut in December 2020, a record which has since been broken by Stefan Bajcetic. He has played just once since, after having a loan spell at Austria Vienna before joining Dunkerque late in this summer’s window.

Koumetio says Mane played a big part in pushing him to put the hard yards in. He added: “Sometimes, he is the one who gives me advice on how to work and how to do things. It’s not just him, they are all examples to me.

“I look at the way they are doing things. And if, for example, for 10 seconds or one minute I’m just there doing nothing, it would be like, ‘Billy! What are you doing?! Come on, come on! Give more, give more!’

“But Sadio is one that was pushing me and I see his mindset and his impact. It’s not only me, you saw him talking to the other youngsters and Divock and Hendo talking to the young ones who come from the academy.”

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