Mohamed Salah has left Liverpool as probably their greatest player of the Premier League era, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a critique.
Salah won it all on Merseyside, and as time goes on he’ll likely be uniformly accepted as a great of the English game for his longevity and ludicrous numbers.
However, heading home to Egypt, that’s very much not the case.
Salah is one goal from matching the country’s all-time scoring record, 69, held by his current coach Hossam Hassan.
Yet even if and when he passed that number, he won’t be as loved as Hassan.
Looking at the facts, the picture instantly becomes clearer, Hassan won five titles as a player for Egypt, including three AFCONs.
In fact, until Salah arrived, Egypt didn’t really know what it was like to lose.
Salah hasn’t won for Egypt
Egyptian journalist Mohamed Abdel Ghany explained: “He’s a player with an extraordinary career.
“A world-class superstar with achievements in Europe that may never be replicated by an Egyptian player in the future.
“But Egypt isn’t used to losing, and Salah will go down in the national team’s history as the figurehead of a team that stands out, a generation of ‘losers.’”
Egypt have won AFCON seven times overall, but their last success was in 2010 before Salah became a fixture.
On top of that, he’s not exactly a public figure.
Salah was known for only using the media in Liverpool when it came to his contract, but with no such concerns in Egypt, he doesn’t exactly talk much.
Egypt public don’t like Salah
Hervé Penot, a journalist at L’Equipe, said: “He’s not someone who gets very involved.
“He doesn’t want to offend anyone in Europe. He’s the opposite, for example, of a huge Egyptian football star, less well-known in Europe: Mohamed Aboutrika, who became involved with Palestine very early on.”
Things may finally be changing for Salah, with Egypt out of the group stage for the first time since 1934.
While no one expects Egypt to go much further, goals and wins will see the tournament become a success and the perception of Salah start changing.
But if he really wants to be loved, staying at the top level and keeping his form for a tilt at AFCON 2027 may be the only way he can retire with the same reputation in Egypt that he enjoys in Liverpool.
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