I couldn't afford El Hadji Diouf's kit, so I wrote his name on one of my old shirts

The Senegalese striker Mamadou Sylla (Kédougou, 1994) is having the time of his life in the Spanish second-tier side Girona, as they fight for the promotion to the famous La Liga. In a conversation with the popular Spanish football magazine Panenka, Sylla talked about his contemporary plans and dreams, but also emphasized the importance of his African roots.

He grew up mostly in Barcelona, where his father used to work, but football had already discovered him in his native Kédougou, southeast of Senegal.

“We played in the street, and anything served us as a ball. We all wanted to be El Hadji Diouf. Since we couldn't buy his shirt, one day I took an old shirt and wrote his name and number on the back with a pen. Many children played barefoot. I had boots because my father was already here and we had a slightly better life. We also had TV, and I remember watching, above all, the Champions League and the 2002 World Cup. Senegal did an excellent job. And I also remember when I arrived in Barcelona ​​when I was nine or ten years old. My father picked up my mother and my brothers at the airport, and I spent the whole trip to Granollers looking out the car window. Hallucinating It was like landing in another world. In a new world”, he emphasizes.

“I always keep my feet on the ground. I know how bad I have been. The road has not been easy, but whenever things get difficult, I think about everything I have been through and that what will come will not be worse than what I have been through, for sure. Sure. The afternoon I played 90 minutes at the Bernabéu with Espanyol, I thought a lot about my childhood. Playing at the Bernabéu, the image came to me when we were playing in the streets of Kédougou with tetra bricks. I got excited. I was proud of myself for my way. With dedication, humility, work and effort, everything is possible. In life, nothing is impossible ”.

After more than three months without seeing a goal, Sylla, top scorer (7) and maximum assistant (4) of Francisco Rodríguez's team has found himself with the goal in the last two dates, against Lugo (1-1) and Las Palmas (1-2).

A new addition to the "like father-like son" section

“Seeing how the ball enters the goal is a difficult feeling to explain. And incomparable. Your self-esteem skyrockets, you feel an explosion of happiness within you. It is almost like a drug. When you discover it, you can't stop. You don't want to. All you want is the next goal. And another and another and another. The weeks are long, and you need the next game to come, both when you score and when you go through a losing streak. With each goal, you make a childhood dream come true, of those years when you were at home, and you saw someone scoring and celebrating a goal on TV, and you imagined yourself in their place. This is precisely what is happening to me. But at the same time, I know that I have a lot of room for improvement and do much better. It would have to be over ten goals now. These last two come at a key moment and have given me a lot of strength for this final stretch of the league ”, continues the rojiblanco '18', dreaming of promotion to the first division: "It would be amazing. It would be incredible, ”he concludes.