Bayern Munich’s Sadio Mané is running again!

As an article from FC Bayern’s official website confirms, injured Bayern Munich winger Sadio Mané has resumed running practice for the first time since he suffered an unfortunate injury last November.

He has had to deal with crushing disappointment of missing out on the World Cup in the meantime and had to go under the knife, but now Bayern’s marquee signing from Liverpool FC has reached his first big milestone on his road to a full recovery — raising hopes that the star winger might be available by the time the Bavarians travel to face PSG in the Champions League Round of 16 in mid-February.

During Bayern’s first team training prior to Tuesday’s Bundesliga duel with 1. FC Köln, Mané was out on the pitch as well, running for the first time in 10 weeks. No further details were given. Mané trained with his Senegalese teammate Bouna Sarr, who has been working on a comeback since September. Sarr managed to complete a full individual session and did some work on the ball, including crosses.

According to Sport1’s Kerry Hau (as captured by @iMiaSanMia), Mané’s goal is return for the PSG tie and might be about three weeks away from a realistic comeback attempts — which means he could miss the first leg. Hau says a more realistic target could be Bayern Munich’s February 18th match against Borussia Mönchengladbach.

One thing is clear, no one wants to risk bringing Mané back before he is ready.

“We will be reasonable at Sadio and not rush anything,” Bayern Munich sporting director Hasan “Brazzo” Salihamidžić said.

It is good to see that the raft of injuries Bayern has had to deal with recently is starting to get smaller, however incremental the progress is. However, now the worry is if the injury gods will seek retribution.