Last month, Sadio Mane flew to Austria to take a peek at his past.



The Liverpool forward and one of his best friends, Red Bull Salzburg integration manager Mustapha “Musti” Mesloub, stopped outside an unassuming house on Wehrgasse, a small U-shaped street that backs onto the Glanbach brook on the western outskirts of the city, and looked up to the one-bedroom flat that was Mane’s abode for almost two years.



They resisted the temptation to ring the doorbell and ask the present occupier to let them in, but then, they didn’t have to. The memories from 2012-13 and 2013-14 are still very fresh.



“It was a rather cramped flat, with a beaten-up leather sofa in the lounge and not much else,” another close friend recalls.



“We spent a lot of time watching football on television there but Sadio could never sit still. He got some weights and other gym equipment from the club in and was always doing core stability...