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There was a lot of childish behaviour on show at the Afcon final last night, some of it perpetrated by actual children. Despite not playing so much as a minute for Senegal during the tournament, their substitute Yehvann Diouf was arguably his side’s man of the match, so heroic was the lone stand he took near Édouard Mendy’s goal literally fighting off a succession of Moroccan ball boys and substitutes who repeatedly tried to steal the towel which his fellow goalkeeper was using to keep his gloves dry. Never mind the wet conditions, Mendy could have slathered his Uhlsport mitts with copious amounts of butter and still comfortably held the pitiful Panenka gently floated his way from the penalty spot with what should have been the winner and the final kick of the game by Morocco’s Brahim Díaz. While conspiracy theorists have suggested the tournament’s top scorer may have agreed to miss on purpose in the interests of sportsmanship, Mendy scoffed at the notion. “No of course not,” he said. “Let’s be serious.” Upon being presented with his golden boot by Gianni Infantino, Díaz looked a genuinely broken man and quite possibly told the Fifa president to just add his trophy to the burgeoning collection of shiny football memorabilia owned by his American bestie in the White House.
