Mohammad Salah: The Merseyside megahit
Apart from his extraordinary talent, the Egyptian player has shown humility, class and quiet respectability with how he handles himself — both on and off the pitch
Mohammad Salah is not only one goal away from breaking the joint Premier League record he shares with Alan Shearer, Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Suarez for most goals in a season, but he is also five away from Ian Rush’s club record of 47 across all competitions in a single season with Liverpool.
With 43 goals in 47 games overall or 31 from 33 in the league in only his first season at Anfield, the 25-year-old Egyptian has somehow managed to outshine even Pep Guardiola’s league champions Manchester City by dismantling them 5-1 in the Champions League quarterfinals. And now, he seems hell bent on breaking-up the shared decade of Ballon d’Or dominance by Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, who have five titles each since 2008.
Last week, he put Liverpool on the verge of their first Champions League final since 2007 by routing his old side Roma 5-2 in the semifinals first leg, becoming only the second Arab player after Leicester City’s Algerian midfielder Riyad Mahrez (2015-2016) to win the Professional Football Association’s (PFA) Players’ Player of the Year Award.
In doing all of the above, he has helped unite and inspire Egypt’s next generation. This of course could extend to so many others across the Arab and Muslim world, who are in desperate need of positive role models after the rut and uncertainty that has followed the so-called Arab Spring. And Salah not only speaks to them through his football but also for them.
Changing wrong perceptions
If growing up Muslim in the United Kingdom has been hard of late, the sight of someone as high-profile as Salah performing the Sujood (kneel to prayer) or D’ua (call) on the pitch in predominantly white working class Merseyside, is heartening, not least because it has prompted fans there to chant positively about his faith. To the tune of Good Enough by Dodgy they sing:
‘If he’s good enough for you he’s good enough for me, if he scores another few then I’ll be Muslim too.
‘If he’s good enough for you he’s good enough for me, he’s sitting in the mosque that’s where I want to be.’
He has also changed the wrong and misguided perception in England of Arab players with the way he has handled himself.
Previous Egyptian role models who have made it to the Premier League such as Mido, who played for Tottenham between 2005 and 2007, and Amr Zaki, who was at Wigan and Hull between 2008 and 2010, were renowned for their hotheadedness and unprofessionalism.
Indeed, even the greatest Arab role model of all time, Zinedine Zidane, a Frenchman of Algerian descent, bowed out in his last ever game by head butting Marco Materazzi in the
2006 World Cup final between Italy and France to cost his side the title. On the contrary, Salah has shown humility, class and quiet respectability with how he handles himself both on and off the pitch. So did Zidane, until that fateful moment.
But then there is no inkling that this latest icon of Arab sport is as preconditioned to self-destruct quite like Zidane was — who having grown up in Marseille, the son of immigrants, was just incapable of taking that one last jibe.
After the 2012 Port Said Stadium riot in Egypt, there was chaos there as the league was shut down for two years. Salah joined Switzerland’s Basel at the age of 20. His upbringing and football education have been different, having moved away from Egypt.
After that came the disappointment of Chelsea under Jose Mourinho with whom he never got enough playing time, and then with subsequent spells at Fiorentina and Roma he was able to re-emerge. Nothing from his time in Italy gave any of us, even Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp, the inclination that he was about to peak quite as spectacularly as he did this season. But it could have been the regret of having not made the most of his first chance at Chelsea that forced him to come out with a point to prove this season. The boy came back a man and having experienced the disappointment of being offloaded by his first big club, he was not about to do anything to jeopardise his second chance at another.
As part of that ongoing football education, however, it would be prudent for him to resist the temptation of big money moves to Real Madrid or Barcelona this summer. That’s difficult to dictate as Liverpool are a selling club, having had to part company with their two previous star players, Luis Suarez and Philippe Coutinho — who both went to Barca in 2014 and 2018, respectively.
Big-money move
And if Salah goes on to win the Champions League with Liverpool and gets Egypt out of the group stages of the World Cup in Russia later this summer for the first time in their history — in Russia, he’s already sure to be one of the players to watch — it would be hard to hold back the tide. Such continuation of form would likely demand a big-money move.
To take a step back and get some perspective, however, you only need to look at Mahrez’s case. After one great season with minnows Leicester, when they won the Premier League against all odds in 2016, he has been virtually unheard of since. Now you could say that is because he didn’t move to a bigger club when he had the chance and that Salah shouldn’t befall the same fate. But you could equally add that great seasons need to be backed up and that sides like Real and Barca should hold on to make sure that if they are going to break the bank for a long-term successor to an ageing Messi or Ronaldo, they should at least be sure they are getting the genuine article. It would be soul-destroying to watch Salah struggle to fit in ala James Rodriguez at Real, if he moves too soon, as it would see him fail to follow up this season if he stays at Anfield. But somehow, the latter seems much less likely.