Mohamed Salah was in tears. His participation in Liverpool’s Champions League final against Real Madrid wasn’t supposed to end like this—a shoulder injury, searing pain, desperate sadness.
When Salah went down under Madrid defender Sergio Ramos’ heavy tackle in the 30th minute of the final on 26 May, a hush fell over the Olympic Stadium in Kiev, Ukraine. When he was finally substituted a few minutes later, unable to carry on, there was a sense that the grand denouement to his spectacular season had been denied.
It has nevertheless been a wonderful year for Salah, one where comparisons with the godheads of modern football, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, have seemed perfectly natural. Eleven months ago, when the man from Nasr City, Cairo, Egypt, signed for Liverpool for a club record transfer from Roma of £36.9m or around Rs3.3 crore (rising to £43.9m with add-on clauses), many were left bemused.
His earlier stint in England’s Premier League, at Chelsea from 2013-15, had been a miss. Underused and criticized for his profligacy in front of goal, he was loaned out first to Fiorentina and then to Roma (the club made the move permanent in 2016) in the Serie A.
He rebuilt his reputation and career in Italy, scoring 43 goals across two-and-a-half seasons, before making the big money switch back to the Premier League with Liverpool in 2017. Yet, doubts remained. Could he cut it in England?
By the end of the 2017-18 season, he had scored a league-record 32 goals, with another 10 in the Champions League. After sweeping up every possible individual domestic accolade, the question now is different—will he win the Ballon d’Or for the best footballer in the world, breaking the duopoly of Messi and Ronaldo?
Just like them, he has become an emblematic player for club and country. Especially with Egypt, he is a totemic player, with an astounding scoring rate of 33 goals from 57 matches. It was his ice-cold stoppage time penalty in the final World Cup qualifying match against Congo, in October, which would ensure the Pharaohs’ return to the tournament after 28 years.
What makes the 25-year-old so special? Blessed with an extraordinary turn of speed and a wand of a left foot, Salah started out as a winger for his home-town club, El Mokawloon, in 2009. He moved to Switzerland’s FC Basel in 2012, and a couple of eye-catching performances in that year’s Champions League enticed Chelsea to take a punt on him.
These days, there’s much more to his game. At Roma, and especially at Liverpool, he has been converted into an out-and-out forward. Playing on the right side of a front three, Salah likes to cut in from the right on to his favoured left foot and shoot at goal.