Souleyman Sané

Souleymane Sané (26 February 1961 in Dakar, Senegal) is a Senegalese-French former football player and football coach. He played as striker mainly in Germany.

Sané was born in Senegal and came to Toulouse, France, with his parents when he was four. His father was an employee of the Senegalese embassy. As a child he took up athletics, boxing and wrestling. ^[1] He then decided on football. He was influenced by his brother, who played professionally at FC Toulouse. Sané started playing football at FC Blagnac in Toulouse. He worked as a pastry chef at the same time. In 1981 he was signed by the Parisian third division club ES Viry-Châtillon. In his first season he was top scorer.

In 1982 he was serving in the French army and went to Germany. There he played for the then fourth division club (Verbandsliga Südbaden) FV Donaueschingen. After his military service, he returned to Toulouse and was loaned to Blagnac FC. In 1984 he returned to Donaueschingen. In 1985 Sané was signed by SC Freiburg. In 1987/88 he was top scorer in the second division with 21 goals. In the summer of 1988 he moved to Bundesliga club 1. FC Nürnberg. In 1990 he went to newly promoted SG Wattenscheid 09. With 39 goals, he is still Wattenscheid's record goalscorer in the Bundesliga.

After the relegation of Wattenscheid in 1994, Sané moved to Austria to FC Tirol Innsbruck. There he became the league's top scorer. Later he played in Switzerland (Lausanne, FC Schaffhausen). From there he returned to SG 09 in the 2nd Bundesliga. He then played for LASK Linz in the Austrian Bundesliga, for Rot-Weiß Leithe and for SW Wattenscheid 08. He later also played for Schwarz-Weiß Südfeldmark in Wattenscheid.

When Sané was playing for Nuremberg, Michel Platini tried to persuade him to play for France. Otto Pfister, then coach in Senegal, made the Senegalese football association aware that Sané had a Senegalese passport. The association managed to get Sané to switch to Senegal two weeks before the first game for France. According to an interview question, he played 55 games for the Senegalese national football team. ^[2] The RSSSF recorded 30 A international matches with eleven goals. ^[3]

He is the father of Leroy Sané, who is playing for FC Bayern Munich and the Germany national football team.