Sadio Mane snubs Mo Salah in dream teammate five-a-side team for Cristiano Ronaldo | OneFootball

Sadio Mane recently named his dream five-a-side team from players that he’s played with and there was no room for Mo Salah.

The former Liverpool star has been fortunate enough to play with numerous world-class players throughout his career and the team he did pick is absolutely stacked.

During a recent interview with Rio Ferdinand, this is the five-a-side team that Mane selected.

Virgil van Dijk

Unsurprisingly, Van Dijk was the first name on the teamsheet.

According to Mane, the Dutch defender sits at the top table alongside Ferdinand as the greatest defender the Premier League has ever seen.

“He’s after you [Ferdinand],” Mane said.

“It’s you and Van Dijk. You know it, I know it. This is no discussion.”

Kalidou Koulibaly

Alongside Van Dijk, Mane picked his national teammate Koulibaly.

The pair won the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations alongside one another, which remains a career highlight for both players.

While they’ve never played together at club level, they are both now playing in Saudi Arabia, with Koulibaly at Al-Hilal.

Philippe Coutinho

“For me, he’s a special player,” is how Mane described Coutinho.

The pair only spent one and a half years playing together at Liverpool, but they just so happened to be Coutinho’s peak years.

Towards the end of his Liverpool career, Coutinho was arguably the best midfielder in the world, playing with a level of consistency that he’s not been able to match since.

On a five-a-side pitch, we can imagine he’d be absolutely superb.

Roberto Firmino

Everyone who played with Firmino seems to love him and Mane was full of praise for his former Brazilian teammate.

He was the glue that held Liverpool’s forward line together under Jurgen Klopp and his role within the side cannot be underestimated.

“Oh, exceptional. Exceptional,” is how Mane described the forward.

“If I said exceptional, it’s just exceptional. Because for me, since I grew up, I never see a football player and a human as kind in my life as Bobby. Never.

“I never see any teammate like Bobby in my life. And he’s the only player in my life I have put in my house.

“And Bobby Firmino, for me, it’s not even… because what he’s able to do, I can’t, even myself. And I never see any player doing it, because it’s special.

“Even football. He can… he doesn’t… sometimes he doesn’t care for nothing. I think it’s also different people. It’s natural like this.

“Because sometimes Salah can score, score, score; me, score, score. He doesn’t score, change him. He doesn’t care. Me, you do this, I will be angry. That’s for sure. Salah, you do… he will be angry.

“And this, sometimes we players, we are like this sometimes. Over… want it, you know? But Bobby, for me, sometimes I just look at him in life, I see what kind of person he is.

“And he never take anything… of course, I never see him angry with anybody. I never saw him angry.

“He’s more… for me, obviously he’s more than football. Everything… no, it’s life, it’s not… no, he’s always like this.

“So I never… that’s why in our day, in football, how you know, me know, everybody, it’s not easy. But Bobby, for me, he’s more than a football player.”

Cristiano Ronaldo

There was no room for Salah in Mane’s team as he instead included Ronaldo as his final player.

The pair have now played alongside each other for over two years at Al-Nassr and have made an excellent start to the 2025-26 season, winning all eight of their opening league matches.

“He is an example for every kind of football player in the world, I have never seen another player like him, that’s for sure,” Mane said when discussing CR7.