As a youngster, Mohamed Salah showed his ability in his native Egypt and joined Switzerland’s Basel in 2012. After achieving results in his first European campaign, his talent was spotted in 2014 and he made the step up to Chelsea in the Premier League.
However, his first challenge in England ended in failure. In just 19 games, he only managed two goals and three assists, figures that would be unthinkable today.
Only a year later he was loaned out to Fiorentina, and in the summer of the same year to AS Roma. The following season he made a full transfer and got his career back on Italian soil.
His subsequent successes were obvious to all. He was a legendary figure at Liverpool and also made history in the Premier League. Meanwhile, reflecting on his time at Chelsea, the player revealed that former Brazilian defender David Luiz always looked out for him.
“I think they were very close to me, especially David. I was quite young, I was shy in that time,”
“I don’t know what happened to me now, but in that time I was shy, I was always alone, so David was like an older brother. He was always trying to take care of me and talk to me all the time.”
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The Egyptian winger, who was not absolute only in London, recounts his first taste of English football.
He revealed a past history of being surprised by the intensity, but confessed that he preferred it to Italian football.
“Tough, they are very intense, they just go for everything,”
“I remember the first game I played it was against Newcastle, I just got tackled on the sideline like ‘boom’ and I thought ‘how am I going to survive here? I need to go to the gym!”
“I know it is very intense, but I love it in a way there’s the space there, we can play and enjoy football. It’s not like other leagues, like the Italian league is very compact. But I love the games with the speed and the intensity.”
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After his disappointment in London, he has been a perennial goalscorer for Liverpool.In recent games, he has become more accurate with his passing in front of goal and has also recorded a number of assists. This season, he tops the table in both goals and assists.
Liverpool are close to becoming the first champions since the Corona period to win the Premier League.
However, there is still a long way to go. In order to continue his own success, he has changed his mindset and now has a style of playing to suit himself, rather than to suit himself.
“The only thing I would say I noticed I have started to study other players game, not just my game. [It’s not] ‘They need to adapt to me’, I need to adapt to them, because they’re still young, they don’t have that experience,”
“Maybe in the future when they become my age, they will do the same. But I think now I know each game how it works, I know how the other guys how they play, I know what they want, and then trying always to use that for my advantage and to also improve my game.”
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