Édouard Mendy has announced his retirement from international football at the age of 34, closing a Senegal career of 59 caps that he regards as the source of his proudest achievements. The former Chelsea goalkeeper, who won the Champions League in 2021, says there is no contest between his club and country successes, and the Africa Cup of Nations comes out on top.
His final memory of the tournament is one of chaos. In the Stade Prince Moulay Abdellah in Rabat, Mendy was preparing to face a penalty against the host nation, Morocco, in stoppage time of the Afcon final. He had just been shown a yellow card after a 17-minute delay during which he and most of his teammates controversially headed to their dressing room in protest at the referee’s decision to penalise El Hadji Malick Diouf after a Morocco corner.
Senegal had also had a goal disallowed minutes earlier. Mendy’s complaints to the Congolese referee, Jean-Jacques Ndala, about having his towel stolen by Ismael Saibari — a misdemeanour for which the Bayern Munich forward later apologised — and about lasers being directed into his eyes from the crowd appeared to fall on deaf ears. “I had to stay patient and try to have a cool head because everywhere else there was fire,” Mendy remembers.
With Real Madrid’s Brahim Díaz standing over the ball, the goalkeeper relied on his reading of the situation. “I realised two steps before he shot … usually when a player does a Panenka they slow down for the last step, but I noticed he did it early,” he says. “I know his preferred side is on the right. But when I saw him slow down way before, I just stood up and managed to catch the ball.”
Four minutes into extra time, Pape Gueye’s goal appeared to have crowned Senegal and Mendy African champions for the second time in four years. More than seven months later, in March, Morocco were awarded a 3-0 victory when the Confederation of African Football ruled that Senegal had forfeited the final by leaving the pitch. A preliminary hearing for Senegal’s appeal is finally set to be heard at the court of arbitration for sport in Switzerland next month.
Mendy’s position on the matter is straightforward. “The only thing we have to remember is that the game went to the end. We went off the pitch but the game restarted,” he said. “For me there is no issue because the final was completed – we were given the trophy and celebrated in our country. That was it. When you speak to me about the Afcon, I just simply tell you that: ‘Yes, we have won it twice.’ That’s nothing against the Moroccan people or anyone else. It’s just how we feel. I’m not a lawyer but it’s just common sense. You can’t change something that has already been decided.”
The decision to walk away from the national team was not taken lightly. Senegal’s new manager, Patrick Vieira, called Mendy in an attempt to change his mind and persuade him to add to his 59 caps, but the goalkeeper asked for time to consider everything before ringing back a couple of days later to confirm his choice. “He is a legend so to have the chance to work with him was really something that came into my mind,” Mendy says. “But at the end of the call I asked for some time to really think about everything. A couple of days later I called him and explained that I wanted to stick to my decision. I started thinking about it after the Afcon and I just came to the conclusion that it was my time to say stop.”
His club career has continued to deliver silverware. Mendy has won a second successive Asian Champions League with Al-Ahli, though he also endured World Cup heartache after sustaining a knee injury against Norway. He now hopes Senegal’s next generation can match what his own side achieved, pointing to Monaco’s Lamine Camara — the midfielder who almost joined Chelsea in the summer — and Aston Villa’s Ibrahim Mbaye as players capable of emulating those achievements.
The Teranga Lions were crowned African champions for the first time in 2022, around eight months after Mendy kept a clean sheet in the 2021 Champions League final. Looking back, he places the two honours in very different categories. “[Winning Afcon] was the best moment of my football career: it was 10 times better [than the Champions League]. I can compare now because I’ve also won the Asian Champions League twice,” he says. “To win for your club is something really incredible. But you cannot compare with winning for your country, especially when they have never won anything before. It happens only once in your life so being part of the team that made history was amazing.”
Mendy’s exploits in 2021 earned him the best goalkeeper award at Fifa’s now defunct The Best ceremony, although he missed out on the Yashin trophy, presented by the organisers of the Ballon d’Or, to Gianluigi Donnarumma. Both men have been nominated again for this year’s award, and Mendy is proud to be in the conversation after what he describes as his best season since turning professional — a campaign in which no other goalkeeper won as many major honours. “To be nominated for the Yashin trophy while I play in Saudi Arabia means a lot to me. My journey has not been easy – everything is about working hard and being resilient. When I see goalkeepers in Senegal wearing the No 16 jersey it makes me so proud. It means that at some point I gave them some inspiration and this is very powerful.”
That journey began in Normandy, with Mendy starting his professional career at Cherbourg before finding himself unemployed for a year after successive relegations. Marseille eventually gave him another chance. Away from the pitch he is helping to fund a school in his parents’ hometown of Keur Massar, which has recently expanded to 200 students, and is behind a scheme supporting budding entrepreneurs in Senegal. “There is so much talent in Senegal and we have a young population that is very dynamic. That’s why it’s important to give them the opportunity to have a better life,” he says. “When my mum sees the school she is so proud and that is the biggest gift anyone can have.”