CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL Ronaldo still pips Salah by a short head
IN THE AIR RONALDO is as good as any centre forward in the world in the air because he has this prodigious leap and his timing is fantastic. His neck muscles are so strong. You wouldn’t put Salah anywhere near him.
In the air, Salah could develop. I don’t see it being a problem though. When you look at his goals, it’s always with the ball at his feet. His feet are so quick and he moves so well.
I don’t envisage sitting here at the end of next season and he has scored 10 with his head. I would be pretty surprised if he gets two.
With Ronaldo it is a muscular thing and it is also about timing. He will just have worked really hard at it. Phil Neville said to me when Ronaldo was at Old Trafford he worked on everything all the time. He has developed his body and the power that goes through his calves when he jumps must be absolutely frightening. Ronaldo Salah FINISHING Even this year with Salah he missed loads of opportunities at the start of the season. You kind of thought, ‘ Oh he’s going to be one of those streaky players where he scores 10 in a row but doesn’t score for another 10’. But then he just seemed to kick on. The big difference between him and Ronaldo is he is still capable of missing quite a few. If you said your life depends on it, Salah is through and Ronaldo is through, you would have to back Ronaldo. That is why he is up there with Lionel Messi. Eventually we will look at Ronaldo and say he is one of the top fi ve in the 5/ 5 2 world… ever. I wouldn’t have given you any money to back him scoring so many when he came to Manchester United. He has made himself that way.
Salah’s achievements this season are frightening but Jurgen Klopp said, as good as he has been, he is not in Ronaldo’s class at the moment. And he’s not, because Ronaldo has scored goals year in, year out, in the very best teams. Ronaldo Salah 5 4 TECHNICAL ABILITY You don’t take the ball off Ronaldo. He is so big and so powerful. But Ronaldo doesn’t SADIO MANE has sent 300 Liverpool shirts back to his family village in Senegal to ensure his supporters back home can cheer on the Reds in style. The winger admitted the small rural town of Bambali, in the south of the country, will see little productive effort when his Liverpool tackle Real Madrid in the Champions League fi nal tomorrow night. “Nobody in the village will work this day,” he said. But his presence in the Liverpool side facing Real Madrid will ensure that a small piece of rural Africa will reverberate like the Kop when the action gets under way in Kiev.
“My family, my mum and my uncle, still live in the village and they are all going to be watching. There are 2,000 in the village,” said Mane.
“I bought 300 Liverpool jerseys to send to the people in the village, so the fans can wear them to watch the fi nal.”
Senegal international Mane is already a hero back home, not only for his exploits with the really beat people any more. He gets half a yard and bang. His game has changed. He doesn’t make his own goals any more because he doesn’t have to.
Salah makes his own goals so you have to say he is technically better at the moment.
Against Tottenham at Anfi eld, Salah got the ball outside the penalty area with three players around him. He pushed into the box and that was clever because the defenders are then scared to tackle him. He just completely bamboozled them.
It’s like Messi, you know where he is going to go, but you cannot stop it because he national side, but having used his fame and fortune for good causes .
In April this year, he donated £ 200,000 to help build a secondary school in Bambali, showing he has not forgotten his roots.
But his profi le would go through the roof if he helps Liverpool bank a sixth European Cup crown and takes back a winners’ medal to show friends and family when he goes home after the World Cup in Russia.
Mane said: “I am not thinking about the pressure, just that it