Sadio Mane enjoyed the most prolific season of his professional career during the 2018-19 campaign.The Senegalese forward scored 26 goals in 50 appearances to help Liverpool win their first Champions League title since 2005.Incredibly, 22 of those goals came in the Premier League as the Reds finished runners up behind Manchester City by the slimmest of margins.Mane has been equally as helpful to another cause, though.Last April, the 27-year-old donated £200,000 to fund the building of a secondary school in his home village of Bambaly, Senegal.

More than one-third of the west-African nation’s 15.4 million inhabitants live below the poverty line, so it would be an understatement to say Mane’s contribution is a huge help.

In a speech read by his uncle Sana Toure at the presentation of his gift, Mane urged locals: “Education is very important. This is what will enable you to have a good career.”

Now, 15 months on, the Liverpool star has flown back to where grew up to see how the construction of the new school his getting on.

Mane is clearly a very talented footballer, but he’s probably even better at making people happy.

He so nearly capped off a gruelling 342-day season by delivering Senegal’s first Africa Cup of Nations title earlier this month but fell to Algeria at the final hurdle.

Nevertheless, Mane remains one of the most popular players for his club and country thanks to his efforts both on and off the pitch.

Last November, he penned a new five-year contract worth around £150,000-a-week - the kind of ‘signing’ Jurgen Klopp feels Liverpool needed to focus on this summer.

In response to Sepp van den Berg and Harvey Elliot being the Reds’ only acquisitions ahead of the new season, the German said, per the Express: "That’s actually our transfers, these are our transfers.

"In our case it was [that] these are our transfers.

"These new contracts, keeping these boys here, was a strong, strong signal for the outside world. It’s a wonderful sign, to be honest.

"I like the fact that these boys are really in a good football age, they won this cup, which is good. It helps of course because it increases your basis."