Sadio Mané seals Senegal’s passage to Afcon final as Burkina Faso blown away

For a long time it wasn’t pretty, but with this Senegal side it rarely is. Not that they will mind. Senegal are the great underachievers of the Africa Cup of Nations and if they beat Cameroon or Egypt on Sunday to lift the trophy for the first time, nobody will much care how they did it. Aliou Cissé’s job is not to entertain but to win.

This was a game that followed the classic Cissé pattern: rugged solidity to start, gradually squeezing the opponent into mistakes before late strikes: eight of the nine goals Senegal have scored in Cameroon have come after the hour. The breakthrough here came on 70 minutes, a corner dropping in the box for the Paris Saint-Germain centre-back Abdou Diallo to hook in. The second was knocked in by Idrissa Gueye after Sadio Mané had outmuscled Bouna Sarr before cutting the ball back. Mané then got the decisive third with a deft finish on the break.

In truth, they could easily have had the lead before half-time. Twice the Ethiopian referee Bamlak Tessema awarded Senegal penalties and twice overturned them after VAR reviews. First Hervé Koffi, the Burkinabé keeper, clattered into Cheikhou Kouyaté but the video showed his fist had – just – made contact with the ball before the Palace midfielder’s skull. Koffi, though, ended up being stretchered off.

Given how strict the interpretation of handball in this tournament has been, the second decision was less clear-cut: Idrissa Gueye’s shot did strike the elbow of the central defender Edmond Tapsoba, but it was by his side as he turned away. Zimbabwe, who conceded a similar penalty late on against Senegal in their first game, may have looked on with surprise.

But this was not just about events on the pitch. For the Burkinabé players, perhaps, their