Liverpool are champions of England, ending a 30-year drought! We continue our series on the key figures of this brilliant season. Next comes the story of Mohamed Salah. »Born in 1992, he grew up in difficult financial circumstances, but he did not give up. He started his career in a club in his hometown, then moved to Europe. He had great success. » This is not an excerpt from a Wikipedia article, but from an essay written by an Egyptian schoolboy. Sixth graders in the city of El-Mansoura were given a choice of topics, and this one was chosen by almost the entire class. It is a story that inspires Egyptian boys who are passionate about football. Salah's journey from humble beginnings to global stardom resonates with young Egyptians.
Despite financial difficulties growing up, he persevered and pursued his dream of playing in Europe. His determination and success have made him an inspiration and source of pride for the next generation of his country. The fact that this story was the popular choice among schoolchildren speaks volumes. Salah’s remarkable journey and achievements have made him a hero figure, demonstrating that with hard work and dedication, even those with modest means can reach the pinnacle of sport. Beyond his exploits on the pitch, Salah’s humility and commitment to the community have endeared him even more to fans. He remains rooted in his roots, using his platform to give back and support causes that are important to him and his home country. This tale of Salah’s rise encapsulates the dreams and aspirations of many young Egyptians. He has shown that with the right mindset and opportunity, greatness is within our reach – a powerful message that resonates with the next generation of football-loving kids.
Rows of modest brick houses, dusty roads lined with piles of rubbish and the face of Mohamed Salah adorning the walls in graffiti: this is the village of Nagrig, located between Alexandria and Cairo. It is the humble place where Mo was born and raised, in the family of a local shopkeeper. Despite its unpretentious and sometimes harsh environment, Nagrig is imbued with a strong sense of community and pride. Children growing up here learn early on the value of resilience and determination in the face of limited opportunities.
“I fell in love with football when I was seven. I was constantly watching the Champions League and watching Zidane, Ronaldo and Totti play. Then, playing with my friends in the yard, I would try to imitate their moves and tricks. I was in love with these footballers, their game had a certain magic,” Salah said. He would watch football in a large garage with an open wall – this is where they regularly showed European league matches. Salah still visits this place every time he returns to his hometown – playing table tennis, billiards and signing autographs for locals. The pitch on which Mo tried to work his magic barely resembled a real football pitch: it was just a dusty patch of dirt with goalposts without nets. Even the ball was a struggle – they often couldn't afford one, so the children improvised, fashioning something that looked like a ball out of old socks: rolling them, compacting them and gluing them together.
“We played together: me, his brother Nasr and a few other guys from the neighbourhood,” recalls Salah’s childhood friend Mohamed Bassuiouni. “We could never take the ball away from Mo! His left foot, oh, his left foot was so beautiful. He was so fast, so smart with the ball. We always knew he would do great things.” Despite the humble, makeshift setting, Salah’s innate talent and passion for the game were evident from a young age. The support and camaraderie of his childhood friends and community nurtured his development, laying the foundation for the global superstar he would become. Through it all, Salah remained deeply connected to his roots, often returning to his hometown and the old familiar places that hold so many cherished memories. His story is a testament to the power of following your dreams, no matter the circumstances.
Over time, Mo started playing for his school team, then joined a club in the nearby city of Tanta. He didn’t stay there long: at the age of 14, scouts from Al-Mokawloon spotted him at a tournament and invited him to Cairo for a trial. The boy who dreamed of making it in football enthusiastically accepted – and that’s how Mo signed his first professional contract. The training sessions, which took place five days a week, required a four-hour commute. This took a toll on his studies: Salah regularly missed classes and got bad grades.
“I would go to school at 7am, and a few hours later I would get a note from the club: ‘Mohammed is allowed to leave school early so he can get to training at 14pm.’ I would only spend about two hours in school a day if I hadn’t become a footballer, I would have really struggled,” Salah recounted in an interview. The grueling schedule and constant travel must have been incredibly taxing, both physically and mentally, for a young teenager. Yet Salah’s determination and passion for the game fueled his drive to overcome challenges. Despite the difficulties, he remained focused on his dream of becoming a professional footballer. This unwavering dedication, even at such a young age, foreshadowed the incredible work ethic and commitment that would later define his rise to global stardom.
This was his life for three or four years: arriving at the training ground at 14pm, finishing around 18pm and returning home at 22pm. He often had to make several transfers – taking two, three, even five different buses to get there and back. Four hours of travel each way, five days a week. “It was very difficult. But I dreamed of becoming a professional footballer. I wanted to be known, to be special,” Mo recalls. At Al-Mokawloon, the coaches used a 3-5-2 formation and Salah played as a left-sided centre-back. He didn’t like it – Mo wanted to score goals. Everything changed after the tears. “We had a very tough and difficult match against a direct competitor, which we won 4-0,” said Said Al-Shesheny, the coach of Salah’s U16 team. “In the locker room, everyone was celebrating, except Mo. He was crying because he hadn’t scored in such an important match.” Mohammed was desperately trying to cover the big distance and escape to attack." The coach then realised how much Salah wanted to score goals.
After that, they moved Mo a little further, and it paid off: he scored 35 goals that season. At one point, Salah was no longer getting any playing time, which hit his morale hard: “I sat on the bench for two months, I didn’t play at all. Then I told my dad that I couldn’t keep driving four hours a day to training, and then I sat on the bench, cried and wanted to quit football,” Salah said. “And my dad said to me: ‘Listen, everyone who becomes famous later in life suffered a lot as a child. The path to the stars is thorny… Just focus on the game, train hard, and I’m sure you’ll be back on the pitch.’ I still remember that conversation: we were in the car, on the way to another training session at 6am. I listened to my father, worked harder and soon I was playing for it again.
Mohamed Salah’s teammates called him “Hadi,” which means “calm” in Arabic. He was a disciplined worker, eating dinner and going to bed before midnight. “Mo was always polite and did everything he was told,” recalls Hamdi Nour, Salah’s first coach. “When he came in, he only used his left foot. I told him he should try to use his right foot too, and he just said, ‘Okay.’ The next morning, Mo would arrive at training earlier than anyone else and train nonstop. When he got home, I would call his father and ask him to monitor his son’s routine – not to watch too much television in the evening and not to stay up too late. And Mo followed it all.”
In 2011, two Egyptian giants – 12-time champions Zamalek and Africa’s most successful club Al-Ahly – approached Mokawloon’s chairman to buy Salah. But Ibrahim Makhlouf refused all offers. The clubs came back a year later, but the chairman’s position remained unchanged: he believed Salah should play in Europe. Makhlouf’s patience paid off. Just before the 2012 Olympics, Salah caught the eye of scouts from the German company Spocs. “When we noticed Salah, he wasn’t even a regular starter. We liked Mo, so we started studying him more closely. Then we compiled all the data and sent a report to FC Basel, with whom we have good relations,” Spocs’ website said. FC Basel hosted a friendly match with the Egyptian U-23 national team, which was preparing for the Olympics. "I will never forget what I saw on the pitch that day," said FC Basel president Bernard Huser. "It was freezing cold, but Salah was magnificent. I had never seen a player so fast."
After the match, Mo was invited to a trial and offered to train with Basel. But what the coaches saw shocked them – at one point, Basel head coach Heiko Vogel even thought that someone else had arrived with Mo: “When I first saw the footage of his match, I thought the video was sped up. He had everything: speed, impact, left leg. However, when Mo trained with us for the first time, we all wondered: maybe he has a twin brother?” On the second day, Mo adapted a little, but still couldn’t show what was expected of him. The coaches were already starting to have doubts, but the next day came. “He was unstoppable,” Vogel recalls. – Fantastic. He was so fast, so explosive! If the ball was under his left foot, he scored. After this training, everyone at headquarters understood why the club wanted to sign Salah.
At first, it wasn’t easy for Mo – everything was different and it was hard for him to get used to it. “I was born in Egypt, I knew everything there… but I didn’t know anything about Switzerland. I didn’t know the language, I didn’t know where I could eat the food I was used to. I turned on the TV, and there were no Egyptian channels! Plus, I was completely alone there, at first it was very difficult for me,” Salah said. This affected his game, but Murat Yakin, who took over Basel in October, understood: the Egyptian needed time to adapt.
Salah began to learn English and constantly worked on himself. Mo gradually got used to the new environment and his performance on the pitch improved significantly – he began to play more, although he did not always have the physical endurance to last the full 90 minutes. Salah's main brilliance in Basel came in the Champions League: "I really wanted to play in this tournament. The opportunity to be there was one of the reasons why I moved to Switzerland," he said. In the match against Chelsea, Mo scored two of the three goals in both games, and he also mercilessly tormented Azpilicueta and Ashley Cole. It was then that Chelsea scouts noticed him, but he did not only charm them: the speedy Egyptian also attracted the attention of Liverpool.
This winter, Chelsea lost Juan Mata and De Bruyne, so the club was in dire need of an attacking player. The choice fell on the Egyptian who had tortured the London club in the Champions League. Liverpool were also after Mohamed Salah, but Chelsea paid more and gave him a five-year contract. And that's how Mo ended up in England. His career soon stagnated: he tried hard, but didn't get much. In the 2014/2015 season, Salah spent almost all his time on the bench: in six months, he only played three times. Mourinho chose Ramires, explaining that reliability was more important than speed. This winter, Salah went to Florence: his loan to Fiorentina was part of the deal to buy Juan Cuadrado. "Before leaving for Italy, I constantly had this thought in my head: I deserve to play. I went to Florence with the desire to show everyone what I'm capable of," said Mo. And he succeeded: he scored in every other game and provided assists.
But despite his success and the quick love of the fans, he left in the summer – Luciano Spalletti was waiting for him in Rome. A year later, the Roman club bought Salah from Chelsea for 15 million euros. Antonio Conte, who had replaced Mourinho as head coach by then, was not happy with the deal: "Nobody consulted me. Salah is a great player. I am not ready to comment on this, otherwise I will have problems." The text highlights the human side of Salah's journey: the difficulties he encountered in adapting to new environments, his determination to prove himself, as well as the ups and downs of his early career. It gives an insight into his state of mind and emotions, making his story more accessible and convincing. Despite all the difficulties, Mo considers his time at Chelsea to be a great lesson: "I am one hundred percent sure that this experience taught me a lot. I learned to be more professional and to become a better person. It was a big step in my career. It was the first time I came to Anfield. I remember thinking: 'One day I'm going to play here.' There was an incredible atmosphere there."
In the summer of 2017, Liverpool were looking for a striker. Jurgen Klopp's main transfer target was Julian Brandt – the manager believed the German striker could strengthen the attack. But Liverpool's sporting director Michael Edwards convinced him to take a closer look at Salah. Klopp agreed. The clubs entered into lengthy negotiations: Roma had problems with Financial Fair Play and they were going to sell Salah one way or another, so the English had to haggle. In the end, they settled for €42 million. Salah later admitted in an interview that his dream had come true: "When I was young, I dreamed of playing for this club one day. When I was given the chance to come here, I thought long and hard about whether I should stay.
to Rome or take the risk and fulfil my childhood dream. I decided to come back to the Premier League. I always played with Liverpool on PlayStation: I had a team with Steven Gerrard, Sami Hyypia and Jamie Carragher. the Merseysiders and their style. "At first, fans had mixed feelings about this transfer: they said Mo couldn't take his chances and could only play with his left foot, and now they had paid such a sum for the "Egyptian Messi". But in his first season, Salah scored 44 goals and became Liverpool's talisman. The rewritten text highlights Salah's personal connection to Liverpool, his long-held dream of playing for the club and the initial scepticism from fans he had to overcome. It humanises his story and makes his success more accessible and inspiring.
In the fall of 2017, the Egyptian national team beat the Congolese national team and qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1990. Salah scored a goal and converted the decisive penalty in the 95th minute. After that, Egypt celebrated raucously and graffiti of their new star – the new pharaoh – appeared on the walls of houses. Salah himself was overjoyed, but his participation in the biggest tournament of his life was then threatened: in the 31st minute of the Champions League final, he was injured. For him and for all of Egypt, it was a real tragedy: there was a good chance that Salah would miss the World Cup. But Mo went to the tournament, even though he was not fully recovered: "I was not healthy. I went back to my room and cried almost every day. I wanted to start the first match against Uruguay, but I couldn't play. , and I cried on the bus, I cried in the bathroom, I knew I couldn't play, at some point everything was gone and it was very difficult. In the end, the Egyptian national team failed and did not reach the knockout stage. But Salah did not leave Russia empty-handed: Ramzan Kadyrov awarded him the title of Honorary Citizen of Chechnya.
— À Nagrig, il y a une école et un centre de jeunesse nommés en l’honneur de Salah. Le maire du village est incroyablement fier du célèbre footballeur : « Non seulement Salah a mis notre village en valeur sur la carte du monde, mais il donne également de l’argent à des œuvres caritatives. Dans le village, il a construit une école qui a coûté des millions. Il a donné de l’argent à l’hôpital Baziun pour une salle de ventilation, des médicaments et des ambulances.
– Salah transfers money to the newlyweds for their weddings.
– In 2017, he gave 210 pounds to Egypt because the country needed foreign currency support.
– Salah also donated £27 to a fund that helps the families of Egyptian football veterans facing financial problems.
And one day his homeland helped him. The fact is that Mohamed Salah never received a higher education: at the age of 22, he entered one of the Egyptian universities, but was soon expelled. The lack of a degree was the least of the problems; at that time, it turned out that not joining the army was much more important. Salah is expected to serve a sentence of one to three years, while he is prohibited from leaving the country even for a few days.
“Salah said he was shocked by this decision. He told me that he was trying to represent Egypt in a better light, and now the country is responding to him like this?” – said the director of the Egyptian national team Ahmed Hassan. To resolve this issue, Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab had to intervene in the negotiations between the country’s Minister of Higher Education and the head coach of the national team Shawki Gharib. As a result, Salah was released from the army. It is difficult to imagine how his life would have developed if everything had turned out differently.