The Sheffield United stars challenged to follow Iliman Ndiaye’s lead after World Cup experience

The Senegal starboy recently returned to Bramall Lane after making three appearances for his country out in Qatar, the last of which was a 3-0 round of 16 defeat to England that ended their World Cup adventure this time around.

Ndiaye continued his good form for the Blades in Saturday’s 1-0 victory over Huddersfield Town, setting up Billy Sharp’s opener with a delicious dribble as the Blades strengthened their grip on second place in the Championship table.

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And Heckingbottom picked out two more members of the Blades’ international contingent who should be especially keen to follow Ndiaye’s lead to the world stage, with qualifiers for the 2024 European Championships set to begin next year.

“I was chatting to Sander about this the other day,” Heckingbottom said. “There's no reason why that Norway team shouldn't be at the next major championship, and he's of the same opinion. They've got a massively talented group and a young one.

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“If they do qualify, you could see them on that stage and that would be good for me to be able to sit back and watch Sander play there as well. George [Baldock] worked so hard to become part of the Greece national set-up to try and get to those tournaments. We've got lots of players who will dream of what Iliman's done.”

That will extend to those in United’s academy, too. Ndiaye only joined the Blades in 2019 from non-league Boreham Wood and was playing U23 football before being fully integrated into the senior set-up when a contract stand-off was resolved just over a year ago.

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"Del [Geary, academy boss] and Micky [Collins, U23 coach] in the academy will be saying it's a great example,” Heckingbottom added. “Other people will have different journeys to get there. Iliman had a loan and we've got other players on loan now. Rhys [Norrington-Davies, who missed going to Qatar through injury] did that and he should have been at the World Cup. I think he'd have played games for Wales at the World Cup.”