{"id":799191,"date":"2024-07-23T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/?p=799191"},"modified":"2024-07-23T01:33:24","modified_gmt":"2024-07-23T01:33:24","slug":"mali-called-me-but-i-refused-because-this-senegalese-player-makes-surprising-revelations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/senegal\/mali-called-me-but-i-refused-because-this-senegalese-player-makes-surprising-revelations","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMali called me, but I refused because\u2026\u201d, this Senegalese player makes surprising revelations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Before the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), Mali wanted to secure the services of this Senegalese player. Unfortunately, he declined the offer for a very specific reason. This player is Moussa Niakhat\u00e9, the defender of the Teranga Lions.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Senegalese player revealed that while he was playing for Metz, Mali contacted him to offer him a spot on their national team. Although he was aware of the great team he could have joined, he said no to the proposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"612\" height=\"413\" src=\"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/07\/image-21-5.jpg\" alt=\"\u201cMali called me, but I refused because\u2026\u201d, this Senegalese player makes surprising revelations\" class=\"wp-image-799192\" style=\"width:650px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/07\/image-21-5.jpg 612w, https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/07\/image-21-5-300x202.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 612px) 100vw, 612px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Moussa Niakhat\u00e9 turned down the offer simply because he is not Malian. According to him, he was contacted because his name seemed to be of Malian origin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I am Senegalese, I love this country, and I have always been coming here since I was a child. I can&#8217;t cheat with that, and I know I will be called when the time comes, but I will never do anything like hinting or anything like that. When I was at Metz, after three months, when I really started playing as a central defender, Mali called me to join their national team at 21 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" src=\"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/07\/image-21-6.jpg\" alt=\"\u201cMali called me, but I refused because\u2026\u201d, this Senegalese player makes surprising revelations\" class=\"wp-image-799193\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/07\/image-21-6.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/07\/image-21-6-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/07\/image-21-6-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a reason why Mali called me and not Senegal. Despite all the respect I have for Mali, which is an incredible nation and showed an extraordinary AFCON, I refused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From the beginning of Mali&#8217;s call, I tried to tell them that I wasn&#8217;t Malian. But they were convinced otherwise. Simply because my name, Niakhat\u00e9, is very Malian. So, I let the call happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then, I explained to them that I was Senegalese. And from that moment on, they respected my choice. I was waiting for Senegal, but I had to prove that I had the ability to play for the Lions,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), Mali wanted to secure the services of this Senegalese player. Unfortunately, he declined the offer for a very specific reason. This player is Moussa Niakhat\u00e9, the defender of the Teranga Lions. The Senegalese player revealed that while he was playing for Metz, Mali contacted him to offer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":799194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[490],"tags":[686,772],"class_list":["post-799191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senegal","tag-mali","tag-moussa-niakhate"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/07\/NOUVEAU-POUR-SITE-1-7.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfmZoa-3lUb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":799195,"href":"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799191\/revisions\/799195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.afriquesports.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}