Salah, Roma fated to square off

Champions League semi pits Liverpool striker against his former club

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND— His departure rescued Roma. His arrival revitalized Liverpool.

When the two clubs meet over two legs in the Champions League semifinals, the matches will also serve as a celebration of Mohamed Salah, a player who means more to Roma and Liverpool than they could ever have imagined.

The Egypt winger left Roma for Liverpool in June last year for $50 million (U.S.). In an offseason when the Premier League spent record sums and Neymar would soon go on to change the sport’s financial landscape by joining Paris Saint- Germain for $332 million, Salah’s transfer wasn’t unnoticed but was hardly agenda-setting.

It has proved a significant piece of business.

For Roma, it helped balance the club’s books, erasing a big chunk of its deficit at a time when the Italian side was facing potential financial fair play penalties from UEFA.

“Anyone who understands a bit of this business knows that that’s like having a sword pointed at your neck,” said Ramon “Monchi” Rodriguez, Roma’s director of sport and essentially its mastermind in the transfer market.

As it turned out, $50 million was a bargain.

On Sunday, Salah collected the Player of the Year award in English soccer, which is voted by his fellow professionals, after a stunning first season at Liverpool in which he has scored 41 goals in all competitions. He hasn’t failed to score in 2018 in a home league game at Anfield, where supporters idolize him and serenade him with songs.

Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp has run out of superlatives to describe Salah but deserves credit for finding a way to get the best out of him.

Fate ensured Roma would be Salah’s next opponent in the competition.

“The Italian defenders are famous for not being friendly,” Klopp said, “so I think Mo will feel early in the game that they are not his teammates anymore and then he can strike back in a football way.”