While Arne Slot seems to think that Liverpool’s starting line-up is stronger without Mohamed Salah, the winger has been conspicuous by his absence in recent weeks, with the Reds struggling to score goals without their talisman.
It’s clear that they need their Egyptian King back at Anfield as quickly as possible. Salah, though, is desperate to extend his stay at the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco. Indeed, he’s not even attempting to hide just how much the tournament means to him.
“I have won almost every honour in the game,” Salah said on Saturday, “but this is the one I am waiting for.
“Everyone wants to achieve something for his country, so I hope we succeed. I think there is no one in Egypt who wants to win the Africa Cup of Nations more than me. I have achieved everything except this title.”
He went agonisingly close twice before, of course, as Egypt didn’t just lose in the final four years ago; The Pharaohs were also beaten by Cameroon in the 2017 tournament-decider. So, when Salah says he’s been “withstanding” the weight of expectancy for “a while”, he’s putting it mildly.
The good news for Salah is that after scoring the decisive goal in the 3-2 quarter-final victory over Ivory Coast, he’s now just two games away from realising his dream. The bad news, though, is that Sadio Mane is once again standing in his way – because the Senegalese superstar has always been one of Salah’s greatest rivals, even when they were teammates.
He could never work out why Salah and Mane never quite clicked off the field, though, and openly wondered in his book if the tension between the two might have had something to do with “the Egypt-Senegal rivalry in African competitions”.
Salah and Mane only met twice in the international arena, in the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers in 2014, before they became teammates at Anfield three years later. However, it has been claimed that three titanic tussles in the space of eight weeks in the spring of 2022 contributed to Mane leaving Liverpool that summer.
Again, though, while Mane was overjoyed at converting the decisive penalty in both of Senegal’s shootout wins over Egypt, in the Africa Cup of Nations final and subsequent World Cup qualification play-off, he by no means revelled in Salah’s misery. On the contrary, Mane was quick to console his fellow forward after slotting home his spot-kick in the AFCON decider in Cameroon.
