Boulaye Dia wins AFCON 2021 with Senegal

While he may not have had as impactful a tournament as he would have dreamed, Boulaye Dia is now and forever and AFCON champion. Senegal won their first ever international trophy in a penalty shootout win over Egypt where Boulaye came on in the 77th minute.

For much of this tournament, Dia was played out of position, pushed over to the right wing to accomodate other forwards. This prevented him from doing many of the the things that he does best, but I am sure that he is happy to have forgone personal glory to see his nation win the title.

The final of AFCON 2021 was billed as a head to head battle between two Liverpool forwards as Mo Salah and Sadio Mane were the biggest stars of the respective sides, but Senegal had an extremely talented team top to bottom with Kalidou Koulibaly in defense, Idrissa Gana Gueye in midfield, and of course Mane going forward along with many other talented players.

Boulaye Dia now returns to Villarreal at a very crucial time with Real Madrid coming up and Gerard Moreno a doubt for that match. Getting Dia back into the lineup and into the form he had before he left AFCON will be imperative as we are in a very tight battle to get into a top four position in La Liga. The distance between the current fourth place side, Barcelona, and the current 7th place side, Real Sociedad, is presently three points, Unless Real Betis wins the Copa Del Rey, 7th place will be out of Europe entirely.

Congratulations to Dia and to his teammates, winning a confederation cup is never easy but they were very deserving winners. Welcome back to Spain and good luck the rest of the season! Endavant!