Star not enough to keep Egypt’s hopes alive
Premier League star Salah alone wasn’t good enough to keep Egypt’s hopes alive
Even the top players, at times, are limited by those around them.
The Georges — Best and Weah — couldn’t carry Northern Ireland or Liberia, respectively, into this tournament.
Last week, ex-Welsh international Ryan Giggs pulled up a chair in the Moscow media centre, the closest he’s been to impacting a World Cup. There are great players whose passports more or less eliminated them from World Cup contention.
Egypt’s Mohamed Salah isn’t dissimilar. The Egyptian playmaker — a hero to his people — needed to be sensational during World Cup qualifying just to get this opportunity, this World Cup appearance.
He put the expectations of an adoring nation on his back and carried the Pharaohs to their first World Cup appearance since 1990.
“He’s our national hero,” Egyptian fans told me outside Krestovsky Stadium. “He loves all of us.”
They described an emotional player-country connection that’s unlike anything I’ve heard. This wasn’t Portugal’s infatuation with Cristiano Ronaldo or Argentina’s reverence for Lionel Messi. They insisted Salah’s Liverpool stardom had altered Egypt’s complexion and boosted its nationalism.
They referred to Tuesday night’s 3-1 loss to Russia as inconsequential.
Just getting here turned out be the limit for a side that was virtually eliminated after suffering its second loss in as many games. Just getting here will have to be enough for Salah when he looks back on a World Cup he came to injured and found his teammates lacked the quality to survive the weakest group in the tournament.
Yet Egypt coach Hector Cuper somehow kept a straight face when he suggested pre-game “other players” would hurt Russia if the hosts became fixated on stopping the English Premier League’s top player.
But Egypt’s problem Tuesday night wasn’t Salah’s inability to affect the biggest game of his career. It was his teammates’ inability to pass the ball through pressure.
Russian coach Stanislav Cherchesov didn’t need to mastermind complicated defensive schemes to stop Salah from hurting the hosts. His approach was simple: don’t let the ball reach the third-best player in the world.
“Maybe you should answer (if you’re shocked),” Cherchesov said post-game. “We analyzed them. Their game against Uruguay was quite telling.
“I think you should ask the head coach of Egypt how the best team on their squad played.” It was Cherchesov’s I-told-youso moment after he promised this country “they’d see” their side bottle up a player who had stolen headlines for three weeks leading up to this decisive group fixture.
Asked if he should be fired post-game, Cuper suggested Egypt’s loss was the result of a few bad minutes that saw Russia ignite Krestovsky Stadium with three goals that shocked pundits who had Egypt getting to the next round.
Salah’s consolation for getting this far was a goal from the penalty spot that seemed justified given he’d dragged Egypt into this tournament.
It will be fitting if it’s the only goal Egypt scores at this tournament after he potted more than half of the Pharaohs’ markers during qualifying.
Now 100 million Egyptians and Salah himself are left to wonder if their fate might have been different if their hero didn’t suffer a freak shoulder injury during the Champions League final.
“He couldn’t prepare with us in the training camp,” Cuper said. “He had to train alone. Perhaps that might have meant his physical ability was reduced.
“He would have had three more weeks to train with us with intensity. But we thought the priority was to help him recover. I think he showed that today.” There was a moment Tuesday night when you could tell Salah felt limited.
Not by his shoulder, but the players around him.
When Russia’s Artem Dzyuba put the game out of reach with a half-hour remaining, Salah turned to his bench, arms outstretched, and wanted answers. He’d already done all he could just getting Egypt this far. That’s going to have to do.