“I can’t explain this happiness,” he says, beaming at the memories still fresh from a fortnight ago. “It’s unbelievable – it was the best day of my life. The celebrations were too much!

“It’s crazy because we know it’s the first trophy for Senegal, and for us also it means we are now in the story of Senegal. When we were younger and Senegal were playing, we would support the team. Now you are a player in the team and you bring home the cup.

“When you see the people’s faces and they are so happy, you can’t explain that.”

Looking back, it all seems so simple. Senegal were tipped for glory, said to have learned from their defeat in the final three years ago, and ready to go one step further for the first time in history.

But in reality things are never as simple as they seem, and the campaign was very nearly derailed from the outset.

“We had a very bad start,” Kouyaté says. “If you look at the team before the first game, we lost 10 players because they had COVID. We didn’t have a goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders, wingers, strikers. It’s too much.

“In training, we prepared for the game using the staff: the cameraman, the kitman. The kitman was training with us because we didn’t have people for training! He was playing left-back because we needed to do tactical work.

“The first two games were played like that and it was not easy – but after the third game everyone was back.”

Kouyaté can laugh about it now, but at the time it meant Senegal were somewhat dismissed as serious contenders.

“We scored only one goal [in the group stage] and it was a penalty,” he says. “Everyone says: ‘Senegal are so bad!’ But I think this helped us.

“Imagine you win the first game, you win the second game and everyone would say: ‘Oh Senegal, look at Senegal.’ But nobody in this tournament was waiting for Senegal.

“After three games they said: ‘No, Senegal will not win anything. They are going to go home.’”

Well, Kouyaté and co. certainly proved them wrong.