Sadio Mane can form a formidable partnership with Cristiano Ronaldo at Al Nassr

A couple of days after Cristiano Ronaldo played his last match for Manchester United, Sadio Mane was limping off the pitch at Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena. There were only 20 minutes on the clock at Bayern’s Bundesliga meeting with Werder Bremen.

The bad news arrived at a pause. It turned out Mane had sustained a calf injury far more serious than first thought. It would turn out to be a significant breaking point in his difficult relationship with Bayern.

Mane, whose move from the German champions to Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia’s Pro League was completed on Tuesday, might now reflect on the shared timing of their ruptures with previous employers when he sits down in Riyadh with Ronaldo, now a team-mate and a fellow star in a league acquiring some of the most medalled footballers in the world.

Mane and CR7 can share many stories. There are the fall-outs at their previous clubs, teams they had joined amid such high expectations. Ronaldo celebrated as a ‘homecoming’ his return to an OId Trafford where he had, as a young winger, blossomed into a global superstar. Last November, he then clashed very publicly with a United hierarchy he said had “betrayed” him.

Mane, for his part, joined Bayern a year ago as, in the words of Jurgen Klopp, “a world-class player, on a high, in really good shape.” He leaves Bayern having fallen short, in the period either side of the fibula injury that also ruled him out Senegal’s World Cup campaign, of his and the club’s targets.

Mane came to Bavaria as a senior striker who, if not like-for-like in terms of skill-sets, was a replacement for Bayern’s record-breaking Robert Lewandowski. He finished up with 12 goals from 38 games, but was increasingly reconciled to starting on the substitutes bench.