LIVERPOOL v EVERTON STANDOUT OF AFRICA
Egyptian Messi’ Salah can be a World Cup star
AHMED ELMOHAMADY says Mo Salah can walk tall this season – just as long as Jurgen Klopp doesn’t play him at leftback!
Aston Villa’s versatile Egyptian has predicted that his compatriot’s name will sit alongside those other modern day greats at the World Cup after a stunning start to life at Liverpool.
But it’s all a far cry from Salah’s first outings in professional football in Africa when he was thrown into defence on his debut as a substitute – with Elmohamady to mark.
While the pint-sized playmaker has terrorised defences at home and in the Champions League this season, his stature has not always worked in his favour.
Elmohamady (right) explains: “I’m really happy for him. What Mo is doing is a great achievement.
“We grew up in the same town and I knew he was going on to big things. But I will never forget when he first started out. I was playing right midfield for ENPPI and he came on as a substitute for Mokawloon.
“He looks small now. He was even smaller when he was 17 or 18 years old. I knew all about him but he gave me a difficult time – even then.
“But what he couldn’t do was beat me in the air. We were drawing 2-2 and I scored the winner with a header at the back post.
“I always tease him about it, even now when we meet up for our national team.”
Village
Elmohamady says Salah is one of the game’s good guys, revealing: “He looks after his parents – and other people in the v illage,” insisting also that his friend’s torrid spell with Chelsea might have paid off after all.
The Villa defender added: “It might not look like it but the time he spent with Chelsea has actually helped him. If you look at it, he joined them from Basel. It was a big step up. “Going into the Premier League would have been tough – very hard – from Swiss football. “But joining a big, successful team like Chelsea made it even more difficult. “It wasn’t as if he was joining just a normal team. “Chelsea were expected to challenge for the title. But he went away after having experienced what you need to do to play at a really big club. “Now, of course, he is doing very well for Liverpool – doing more than that, to be honest – but if he hadn’t spent that time here before he might have taken longer to adapt and not made the same impact.” Elmohamady says that Salah, 25, is still no big fan of defending. But, much like Chelsea’s Eden Hazard, he can be forgiven when he is playing at such a level in front of the opposition’s goal.
After all, you don’t pick up the nickname ‘Egyptian Messi’ for nothing.
Elmohamady believes that this summer’s World Cup, where Egypt have qualified for the first time in 28 years, will showcase Salah’s talents.
It was a late goal from the penalty spot from Klopp’s £40million signing that has landed the Pharaohs the gig next June.
Dangerous
He said: “He’s playing at the same level as some of the biggest names in the game. Look at the players who are making a difference in front of goal, there’s Mo and Eden Hazard, Alexis Sanchez, Harry Kane... the boys at Manchester City.
“But if I asked you who you would pick from them on current form, Mo’s there. He really is very dangerous.
“And if he can keep up that form in the summer, there is no reason why we cannot surprise one or two people in Russia.”