Bono vs Mane: RSL rivals go head-to-head for ultimate AFCON glory

Sadio Mane got the decisive goal, the Senegal star again coming to the rescue as he fired his national team through to a second Africa Cup of Nations final in three editions.

For Senegal, Mane has long been the man for the grand occasion. This time, and just like in the 2021 final, it was Egypt and former Liverpool teammate Mohamed Salah who felt the forward’s wrath.

As the first 2025 AFCON semi-final ground into the final 15 minutes, the match in Tangier scoreless, Mane latched onto a loose ball at the edge of the Egypt penalty area and drilled an unstoppable low drive inside the near post.

Senegal had their winner, a place in the showpiece theirs.

It felt a little like history repeating. Four years previously, when Senegal chased a first continental crown, Mane converted the decisive penalty in the shootout in the final with Egypt and his place in AFCON history was secured.

Now plying his club trade at Al Nassr, the former Liverpool and Bayern Munich attacker is hoping to return to the Saudi Arabian capital with another trophy for his national team under his arm.

Yet, standing in his way when the final unfolds in Rabat, Morocco, on Sunday, will be another Riyadh resident looking to do likewise. And just as Mane did last Wednesday, Yassine Bono proved the hero for his country 24 hours later.

Morocco’s semi-final against Nigeria had been a tense and taught affair, nothing separating the sides as a contentious clash spilled into penalties.

There, under the most extreme pressure, Bono stood tall as he so often has. Crucially, the 2025 CAF Goalkeeper of the Year saved two of Nigeria’s four spot-kicks. Morocco, the hosts, prevailed 4-2 to reach a first AFCON final in half a century. Back then, it came on home soil, too.

For history to repeat itself, though, Bono will have to overcome a trio of Roshn Saudi League contemporaries: alongside Mane, Al Ahli goalkeeper Edouard Mendy and Al Hilal defender Kalidou Koulibaly make up Senegal’s Saudi-based spine.

All four players joined the RSL in that unprecedented summer of 2023; all four have gone on to make an indefinable mark on Saudi Arabia football. Bono and Koulibaly are RSL champions, both pivotal in Al Hilal’s record-breaking title success of 2023-24. Indeed, Bono was named that term's RSL Goalkeeper of the Year.

That season, Mane’s Al Nassr finished runners-up, while when he departed last month for the AFCON, the capital club sat top of the table, with a perfect nine wins from nine.

Mendy, meanwhile, formed an almost-impenetrable last line of defence for Al Ahli last year, when the Jeddah giants landed a historic first AFC Champions League Elite trophy and, then, the Saudi Super Cup, against Mane’s Al Nassr, in Hong Kong.

Mendy, Mane and Senegal, though, have their work cut out in Morocco. The goalless encounter with Nigeria represented Bono’s fifth clean sheet of the 2025 AFCON; he is now only three away from the all-time record, held by Egypt legend Essam El Hadary, at 14.

After his Man of the Match display in the semi-final, the Al Hilal stopper offered: “The team needs me and I stepped up. By the grace of God, things went smoothly for us. In three days, God willing, we will try to recover and give our best to the Moroccan public.”

Koulibaly, Mendy, Mane: Senegal's RSL spine gunning for more AFCON glory

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A long-established crosstown RSL rival, Mane will want to spoil the party.

"We have to be honest about the final - all the teams are amazing,” the Al Nassr man said on Wednesday having also collected a Man of the Match award. “We'll see, and we'll try to be ready for the final and, above all, to give our best.

“I hope to win and bring the trophy back to Dakar.”

For that, he’ll need to first get past Bono. Sunday's marquee match in Morocco has plenty of RSL flavour, where the two protagonists, separated by the predominant Riyadh divide, face off for the most coveted prize in African football.