The glory days of the 2002 World Cup, as Senegal beat France
The dismissal of coach Lamine Ndiaye cannot paper over the fundamental problems that currently exist within Senegalese football.
Six years on from the highs of 2002, when the Teranga Lions reached the Africa Cup of Nations final and the last eight of the World Cup, the game lurches from crisis to crisis.
Few thought Senegal's most popular sport could sink any lower than it did following this year's Nations Cup in Ghana.
After El Hadji Diouf and company exited in the first round, 29 of 40 Senegalese Football Federation (FSF) members resigned in the public backlash.
Amidst the chaos, the national championship went nine months without a ball being kicked until a Fifa-appointed Normalisation Committee finally set it on its way.
Now though, Senegal are out of the next World Cup and Nations Cup - a similar plight affecting the West Africans' often-neglected youth teams as well.
It is easy to question the team selection of Ndiaye
Yet this is a country which has the highest number of African footballers in Europe, Nigeria aside.
As Dakar burned after Saturday's exit, fans stoned the FSF headquarters, smashing windows and destroying documents - meaning football here has to rebuild in more ways than one.
And although no FSF is currently in place as the Normalisation Committee temporarily runs the sport, the body is largely responsible for football's current predicament.
It frittered away the substantial sum received from Fifa for Senegal's fine 2002 World Cup display, so wasting the best opportunity to develop the game for years to come.
Significantly, the Lions are now at their lowest Fifa ranking (49) since January 2002 - the month when Senegalese football really took off.
That was thanks to a golden generation, five of whom - Diouf, Tony Sylva, Henri Camara, Khalilou Fadiga and Salif Diao - were still present on Saturday.
And this is one area where Ndiaye got things wrong, over-relying on the old guard as the Lions' Group 6 campaign advanced.
Neither Fadiga, 33, nor Diao, 31, had played in Senegal for over three years and both were ineffective on Saturday, substituted before the hour-mark as they wilted under a strong sun.
Meanwhile, Ndiaye's belief in Camara, 31, seemed rooted in the past - Senegal's record scorer playing every qualifier but scoring just once in over seven hours of football.
But is this surprising when the striker, whose last Premiership goal dates back to 2006, has played just 34 minutes of league football in the whole of 2008?
In the wings was part of Senegal's new generation which Ndiaye was reluctant to use - such as Mbaye Leye, 24, who contested just two qualifiers despite netting 17 goals in his last 34 games in Belgium.
"I do not change my attack when it does not score and I do not change my defence when it concedes goals," Ndiaye said last week.
If that comment beggars belief, so perhaps does Camara's explanation for Senegal's failure.
"This elimination will be difficult to accept, but what can you do when some Senegalese are using tricks to damage our team?" he tearfully asked a local journalist.
"What has just happened is abnormal - and we've been undone by the work of 'marabouts'."
Countless Senegalese believe in the magical powers of 'marabouts', or traditional religious leaders, but they are certainly not to blame for the Lions' failure to reach Africa's first World Cup.
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