Édouard Mendy vs Pape Bouba Diop
Senegal against Senegal. The almanac states its case, the crowd votes, you decide.
Édouard Mendy
Senegal · 2014–25 · GK
- Almanac rating
- 86
- Rank in Senegal
- #4 of 33
- Caps
- 57 · 0 goals
- Clubs
- Stade de Reims, Chelsea, Al Ahli
He was twenty-two in 2014, out of the game after leaving Cherbourg, drawing unemployment benefit in France and looking for work outside football. By 2022 he was an African champion and a European one, with Senegal's Africa Cup of Nations and Chelsea's 2021 Champions League as the first African goalkeeper to lift it, and he added the AFC Champions League Elite with Al-Ahli in 2025 and FIFA's goalkeeper of the year for 2021. Career record: 57 caps and 0 goals for Senegal; club career at Stade de Reims, Chelsea, Al Ahli.
Pape Bouba Diop
Senegal · 2002–08 · CDM
- Almanac rating
- 84
- Rank in Senegal
- #9 of 33
- Caps
- 63 · 11 goals
- Clubs
- Neuchâtel Xamax FCS, Fulham, Portsmouth
Thirty minutes into the 2002 World Cup opener in Seoul, he forced the loose ball past France after Diouf's low cross, then laid his number 19 shirt by the corner flag and danced around it. Three goals made him Senegal's top scorer at a World Cup that ended in the quarter-finals, and he was an Africa Cup of Nations runner-up months earlier; he later came off the bench in Portsmouth's 2008 FA Cup final win. Career record: 63 caps and 11 goals for Senegal; club career at Neuchâtel Xamax FCS, Fulham, Portsmouth.
The verdict
The almanac puts Édouard Mendy ahead by 2 rating points, 86 against 84.
Fans have not settled this one yet. Cast the first vote in the duels.