Not least because it was right in front of
the Liverpool faithful, and he’d effectively
secured a place in their first Champions
League semi-final for a decade – it was
a crucial away goal which sent them into
a 4-1 aggregate lead, against a team that
would accrue a record 100 Premier League
points that season. If his popularity among
Reds fans was already soaring, towards the
end of a stellar first season at Anfield, then
this was the goal that cemented the bond,
began to create a bona fide club legend and
proved he was capable of delivering decisive
moments in the very biggest of matches.
In Klopp’s first two seasons as Liverpool
boss, the Reds had made clear progress, but
finished eighth and fourth in the Premier
League, also losing in the League Cup and
Europa League finals. With Salah in their
team, absolutely anything had become
possible – the player himself knew that, too.
From the moment he arrived, he always did.
“When I had the conversation with the
manager and he showed me the plan for the
club, I was so excited by it,” he remembers.
“I said, ‘Yeah, I think we have a team to win
something.’ From the beginning, I thought
we could do something special.”
That they reached the Champions League
final in his debut campaign, despite losing
Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona in January,
said much about Salah’s significant impact.
His talent wasn’t exactly a secret when he
joined Liverpool – he’d scored 35 Serie A
goals in two and a half seasons at Fiorentina
and then Roma, not an inconsiderable sum
against Italian defences – and the £36.9m
price tag was actually a club record, despite
being lower than many fees paid by other
teams that summer. But so much of the
media focus initially remained on Coutinho,
and whether the Reds could hang on to the
player many regarded as their biggest asset.
As it turned out, Liverpool didn’t miss the
Brazilian at all. Salah was named PFA Player
of the Year, scoring an extraordinary 44
goals in all competitions for the Reds that
season – a tally surpassed just once in the
club’s history, by Ian Rush in 1983-84.
Salah’s 32 league goals were also a record
for a 38-game Premier League campaign –
individually, the Egyptian scored more goals
than West Brom, Swansea and Huddersfield
managed from their entire squads.“OH, S**T... IT’S TOO EARLY!”
After helping Liverpool past Manchester City
into the Champions League semi-finals, Salah
struck twice more against his old club Romain the last four, then travelled to Kyiv to face-
off against Real Madrid in the final, hopeful it
could be the happiest day of his career.
“It was my dream to win the Champions
League when I was young – more than the
Premier League,” he admits. “The Premier
League was always the Liverpool dream, the
dream of the city. But when I was young,
I always watched the Champions League.”
Just when everything was going so well, it
all came crashing down when he was forced
off the field with a shoulder injury just 31
minutes into the showpiece, after tangling
with Madrid captain Sergio Ramos. Salah
couldn’t hold back the tears.
“That was the worst feeling of my life in
football,” he explains now. “You’d had an
unbelievable season, I scored more than 40
goals, you’re in the final of the Champions
League and you feel like you’re very, very
close. The World Cup is also after that, in one
month. In that moment, everything comes
to your head – you’re out of the Champions
League, you’re injured; for the World Cup
you’re injured too. It was not the best feeling.
But with time, I managed to handle it.”
Salah made it to the World Cup but wasn’t
at peak fitness, and missed Egypt’s opening
defeat to Uruguay. He scored against both
Russia and Saudi Arabia, but the PharaohsClockwise from
below One of
the Egyptian’s
two top Reds
goals; agony in
the Champions
League final;
Firmino shows
off his powers
of telekinesisMO
SALAH