Who is Mohamed Salah ?
Mohamed Salah is an Egyptian footballer who plays as a forward for the Egyptian National Team as well as the Premier League club ‘Liverpool.’ Born and brought up in Gharbia, Egypt,
Considered one of the Best Players in the world, he is known for his Finishing, Dribbling, and Speed etc.
He is a gifted footballer since his childhood. He started his career with the youth team of the Egyptian club ‘El Mokawloon.’ Soon, his transition happened to the club’s senior team in the ‘Egyptian Premier League’ in 2010. In 2012, he transferred to the Swiss football club, ‘FC Basel’.
He played an important role in Basel’s victory in the 2012-13 ‘Swiss Championship’ and the 2013 ‘Uhren cup.’
In January 2014, he transferred to ‘Chelsea,’ becoming the first ever Egyptian player to play with Chelsea. Subsequently, he played for ‘Roma’ and ‘Fiorentina’ (on loan) before signing a new contract with ‘Liverpool’ in 2017.
In 2017, he was named the ‘African Footballer of the Year’ by BBC and CAF.
I. Birth and Childhood
Mohamed Salah Hamed Mahrous Ghaly, born 15 June 1992 is an Egyptian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Premier League club Liverpool and captains the Egypt National Team.
He is shortly known as Mohamed Salah or Mo Salah , is the son of Salah Ghaly, with the name of his mother currently unknown. Born in the village of Nagrig to a simple couple.
He grew up with his parents and his brother, Nasr Salah as like any other children in the village. He developed an interest in football from a very young age, as he fell in love with the beloved sport from the age of six or seven.
Growing up, Salah idolized footballing greats such as Zidane, Totti and Ronaldo Nazario, all of whom were in their prime during the Egyptian prodigy’s childhood. While Mohamed Salah has managed to reach the pinnacle of professional football, it is essential to mention that football is in his family’s genes, as his father and uncles were also footballers, although in an amateur and quite local level. As Salah progressed through life, his love for football grew deeper and he decided to pursue football on a professional level.
II. Football Career
He first joined the local club Ittihad Basyoun, where he first got to show local scouts what he had to offer. He also experienced playing for Othmason Tanta, but it was after he joined Al Mokawloon at the age of 14, that his footballing career started to take shape. Salah quickly rose up the ranks at the club’s Under-15 side, as he honed his skills to be fit for the senior squad.
Having been discovered by Al Mokawloon’s then manager, Mohamed Radwan, Salah had to go under a strict diet and a special training program in order to accelerate his muscle growth as his young age did not allow him to join the senior squad and make his debut. finally took him to the club’s senior side, as he finally got to make his professional debut on 3 May, 2010 almost at the age of 18.
Of course that is not to say that it was Salah alone who managed to bring the trophy to Anfield, as every member of the team had a vital role in their league success, especially their beloved manager, Jurgen Klopp.
However, Salah’s role in scoring unbelievable goals and snatching the three points at every match was quite crucial in achieving this feat. After joining Liverpool in 2017, “The Pharaoh” turned into one of the most valuable footballers in the world, becoming a perfect forward in his prime, making it known to everyone that he was in fact born and raised in Egypt. Some of his compatriots are Mohamed Elneny, Ahmed Elmohamady, and Mohamed Aboutrika, who are quite the national heroes back in Egypt.
Joining Al Mokawloon at the age of 14, Salah received the chance to join the club’s senior squad and make his professional debut in 2010, as he came on as a substitute in the match against El Mansoura in the Egyptian Premier League, which ended in a 1-1 draw. Proving his worth and showing his talents to the manager, his teammates and the club’s supporters week in week out, Salah managed to become a regular starter in the team.
It might be difficult to imagine Salah as someone who regularly struggles to score a goal, but he did in fact have such a struggle during the early days of his professional career. He did of course get to put an end to all of the speculations about his inability to score a goal, by putting the ball into the back of the net and scoring his very first goal in the match against Al Ahly on 25 December 2010, which also ended in a 1-1 draw.
With the suspension of the Egyptian Premier League following the Port Said Stadium riot, FC Basel took advantage of the Egyptian football’s situation and organized a friendly match to further analyze Salah’s abilities and potential, which subsequently led to him signing a four-year contract with Basel in 15 June 2012 for an undisclosed fee.
Coming in to replace fan-favorite Xherdan Shaqiri (whom he later became teammates with at Liverpool), Salah had quite a difficult time at Basel, as he did not even speak the language.
The first time that the Egyptian forward played for the Swiss club, was in a friendly match against Steaua Bucuresti, which ended in a 4-2 defeat. He made his official debut for the club in the preliminary stages of the UEFA Champions League against Molde FK, while later making his league debut against Thun.While Salah had the chance to shine in the Swiss Super League, it was in the Europa League that he shined the most as he managed to score his first goal of the competition in a historic comeback against Tottenham Hotspur, as they managed to overturn a 3-goal lead and qualify to the next round by beating the English club in the penalty shootouts.
Having scored a couple of goals against Chelsea in during his two-season spell at Basel, the Blues were heavily interested in bringing the Egyptian talent to their side, which is exactly what happened as they announced the signing of Mohamed Salah for reportedly £11 million on 23 January 2014. Later on, Salah came on as a substitute in the match against Newcastle United and made his Premier League debut on 8 February, as the game ended in a 3-0 victory.
Nothing is better than scoring your first goal for a club in an intense showdown such as the London Derby. Mohamed Salah got to experience the joy and thrill of such an accomplishment after he scored his first goal for Chelsea in the match against Arsenal at home, as they humiliated the Gunners in a 6-0 rout at the Stamford Bridge. Unfortunately for the Egyptian forward, the honeymoon phase ended pretty quickly as he spent almost the entirety of the 2014-15 season warming the bench, with Jose Mourinho publicly criticizing his lack of effort and attitude.
Salah then moved to Fiorentina on loan in the 2015 winter transfer window, as Juan Cuadrado switched clubs with the Egyptian talent and moved to Chelsea. Choosing the number 74 shirt in honor of the Port Said Stadium riot victims, Mohamed Salah managed to help Fiorentina qualify to the Europa League round of 16 by scoring his first European goal for the club in the victory against Tottenham, as it seemed that the lightning-fast winger had a knack for scoring goals against Spurs.
Mohamed Salah life story took a turn for the better when he decided to move on loan to Roma instead of moving back to Chelsea after the expiration of his 18-month loan contract with Fiorentina.
However, he was used sparingly in his debut season and was allowed to leave on loan to Serie A clubs Fiorentina and Roma.
Joining AS Roma on a season-long loan with an option to buy, Salah started to gain much deserved prominence at the Serie A side, winning the Player of the Season award as the club’s top goalscorer. He managed to score an impressive 15 goals across all competitions, 14 of which came in Serie A, and provide a total of 6 assists in the process.
He made his move to Roma, with the latter eventually signing him permanently for €15 million. and got to make his first club career hat-trick against Bologna in the 2016-17 season, as Roma easily won the match against Bologna.
His feats at Roma finally earned him a move to Liverpool in 2017, as Jurgen Klopp was criticized for signing a Chelsea reject for a record fee of £36.9 million. This has heralded the arrival of " The Egyptian King " in European Football World and subsequently on World Stage.
While he struggled to score goals in the early days of his professional career, by the time Salah joined Liverpool, he had turned into a lethal forward, as he managed to score on his Premier League debut with Liverpool against Watford. His first season with the reds was magical, as he overtook the likes of Lionel Messi and Harry Kane as the leading goalscorer in Europe’s top-five league with 36 goals.
It only got better after his first season, as he won several accolades and honors, helping Liverpool win the 2019–20 Premier League, which ended the club's 30-year league title drought.
III. Style of play
Not every player is fit to play as a winger, since not every player has the pace, strength, vision and dribbling ability required to play in such a vital position in the 4-3-3 system of modern football. Mohamed Salah, on the other hand, is not only a player with a lightning-fast pace, fine agility and a sharp mind for tactical deployments, but also a lethal and prolific player with an eye for goal, who masterfully controls the ball and cuts inside from the right flank.
He is dominantly a left-footed player, which comes in handy when he moves towards the center and shoots the ball towards the goal, as he has been seen on many occasions to take finesse shots and put it into the top bin. It is worth adding that while Salah is most comfortable playing on the right wing, he is versatile enough to be deployed behind the main striker as a second striker or even an attacking midfielder.
Of course he was not always a prolific winger, as he started playing football as a left-back, and was only later deployed as a winger after his coach recognized how Salah’s hunger for scoring goals after he cried for not being able to score any goals in their win over ENPPI’s youth side.
IV. International Honours and Accolades
Mohamed Salah has managed to receive numerous accolades throughout his career, with many of the footballing greats praising the winger’s style of play and endless efforts towards success. People such as Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard, and even his former manager, Jose Mourinho have all praised how good Salah actually is. Bear in mind that Mourinho was initially the one who kept him on the bench, not giving him enough time to find his feet at the club, which turned him into a Chelsea reject, rather than a club icon, as he currently is for Liverpool.
He is known worldwide as the Egyptian Messi thanks to his dribbling techniques and his ability to cut through opposition defenders with ease.
Not even Steven Gerrard or Jamie Carragher have received as much love and affection from Liverpool supporters as Mohamed Salah has since joining the club in 2017. There are a number of murals of the Egyptian winger, with some of the most notable ones being the One on in New York’s Times Square and the one in Liverpool, which has the following poem written under it:
“Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah.
The Muslim maestro.
Cairo’s hero.
The golden smile of the Nile.
The world’s swiftest Egyptian.
Blink…you’ll miss him.
His scoring rate is one a game.
So once a match, Anfield becomes his prayer mat.”
Nowadays in modern football, players such as Mohamed Salah need to have their own rather unique styles of celebration, as nothing extends a brand’s name and fame more than an eye-catching goal celebration style, which almost everyone can copy. The Egypt international usually chooses from a selection of goal celebration styles to celebrate his magnificent goals with the fans and his teammates. But the most notable ones are the Sujud and the Yoga pose that he adopted after scoring against his former club, Chelsea, on 15 April, 2019.
There is no particularly emotional or retrospective reason behind this celebration, however, as he claimed that the idea for such a celebration came to his mind only after scoring the goal against Chelsea, adding that the reason behind this pose was the fact that he is a yoga man and regularly does yoga.
Being one of the most valuable footballers in 2021, Salah has numerous sponsorship deals across the world, with the most notable one being with the sportswear giants, Adidas. Per his contract, he wears Adidas X18 football boots and even had an appearance in the manufacturer’s 2018 World Cup commercial. Being such an effective winger for Liverpool, Salah got the overall rating of 90 in EA Sports’ FIFA 21.
At international level, Salah represented Egypt at youth level before making his senior debut in 2011. Following his performances at the 2012 Summer Olympics, he was named CAF Most Promising African Talent of the Year. Since then, he has helped Egypt reach the final of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations, and was top scorer during CAF qualification to help the team qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Salah has been named the CAF African Footballer of the Year (2017 and 2018), BBC African Footballer of the Year (2017 and 2018), and was selected in the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations Team of the Tournament and the CAF Team of the Year on several occasions.
Mohamed Salah has quite a full trophy cabinet for himself, with a number of individual and collective honors and trophies shining bright on his cabinet. He has won two Premier League titles, an EFL Cup, a Champions League trophy, 2 Swiss Super League titles, a UEFA Supercup trophy and a FIFA Club World Cup. He is also the two-time proud winner of the African Footballer of the Year award, as he got to be the Premier League’s top scorers for two consecutive seasons.
While the above entioned details about Mohamed Salah biography were all you needed to know about the Egyptian superstar, some of these stats and numbers will surely change in time, as he is only 29 years old in 2021.
Wonderful Narration by CNN and Mo Salah Interview at :
Mo Salah: A day in the life of the 'Egyptian King' - By CNN , Updated 2120 GMT (0520 HKT) April 24, 2018
VI. Legal issues
Prior to Liverpool’s loss in the Champions League Final against Real Madrid, Mo Salah went through a controversy of sorts, as he and his agent got furious over the fact that the Egyptian FA had used his image rights without any authorization. While this might not raise any controversies in normal circumstances, the Egyptian FA had used his image to promote a competitor of Vodafone, who Salah actually represented at the time.
The dispute backlashed in the face of the FA, as people took on to social media to show their support of their superstar, which resulted in the Egyptian government intervening to resolve the matter.
Pic : MM Rao Boarding Egypt Air in Cairo, Which Sponsored Egypt National Team in Soccer World Cuo 2018 ( with Mo Salah Picture on the Flight ).
The Egyptian winger has played for quite a number of clubs in his career, starting his professional journey with El Mokawloon, then moving to the following clubs in chronological order:
FC Basel (2012),
Chelsea (2014),
Fiorentina (2015),
AS Roma (2015),
Liverpool (2017).
Over the course of his club career, Salah has made more than 430 appearances, scoring an impressive 188 goals and providing a notable 98 assists in the process.
V. Mohamed Salah personal life
Below we will be taking a look at The Egyptian Messi’s personal life, from his family and children to his philanthropic and humanitarian endeavors. So follow us below as we delve into the more personal side of Mohamed Salah biography for a change.
Family, children and relationships
While there is little detail about Mohamed Salah’s father and even less information about his mother, there is plenty to know about his wife, Magi Sadeq. The two got married in 2013 and welcomed their first born a year later in 2014, a girl whom they named Makka after the Islamic holy city of Mecca. They welcomed their second child, Kayan, in 2020.
V. Philanthropy
As it is expected of devout religious athletes and basically every celebrity, Mohamed Salah actively takes part in several humanitarian and philanthropic projects across his home village, his country, and even all over the world. He has paid for the construction of an academic institute and a hospital in Nagrig. Helping more than 500 families through monthly pensions, Salah also played a vital role in helping his country through an economic crisis by donating roughly £300,000 to the Egyptian government.
Mohamed Salah is estimated to have a net worth of $90 million.
Mohamed Salah - Forbes
2021 THE WORLD'S HIGHEST-PAID ATHLETES EARNINGS
$37.5M as of 6/4/21
Salah plays for Liverpool on a five-year contract running through June 2023 that is heavily incentivized for his performance.
In October 2020, Salah scored his 100th goal for Liverpool, becoming the fastest player to do so in club history in the top flight.
In December 2020, he became the Liverpool's career leader in Champions League goals.
Reds fans celebrate him by singing, "If he scores another few, then I'll be Muslim, too"; he is credited for reducing Islamophobia in Liverpool.
Adidas celebrated his ability to unite people through sport in its "Impossible Is Nothing" campaign and projected him onto the Burj Khalifa's facade.
VI. The Important Take Away
Mohamed Salah inspires many people not only from his religion or his footballer fans but also to every person who desires to succeed in life, to overcome obstacles faced to achieve their goals.
From nothing he has become the talk of football, his hard work and passion have taken him to stratospheric heights in his career, his simplicity, generosity and humility have propelled his popularity.
Despite his fame, Salah is a philanthropist supporting development in his country, uniting his people, the Muslim and the Arabs. People's dedication in his country is evident in their daily activities.
Now as one of the Premier League's top scorers and one of the world's most sought-after players, he has won at least ten sporting awards.
Salah's penalty against Congo in October 2017 helped to secure the Egypt Team's place in its first World Cup in 28 years.
VII. Mo Salah Videos :
1.The Season Mohamed Salah Became The Egyptian King
2. Top 10 Mo Salah Premier League Goals 2017/18
2. Fastest to Fifty | Mo Salah's first 50 Premier League goals for Liverpool
5. This Is Why Everyone Loves Mohamed Salah ● RESPECT!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrjMBKBHbNI
Epilogue
It is true that the world of football and the media can sometimes only talk about how great Mohamed Salah has been for Liverpool, and how he has helped change the balance of power amongst clubs in the Premier League. But back in 2016, when the Egyptian winger was still playing for AS Roma, few could have even imagined that a former Chelsea reject was all that it would take for Liverpool to win the Premier League after thirty years.
While club career is what turns a local star to a global superstar, a player’s international career could mark their presence in the history of their homeland, as they become an icon and an idol for the future generations. Salah made his International debut for Egypt at the age of 19 years, 2 months and 19 days old.
Over the course of his club career, Salah has made more than 430 appearances, scoring an impressive 188 goals and providing a notable 98 assists in the process.
Mohamed Salah 's Stunning Life Journey is not only Inspirational to Football World, but to Whole World, As a Young Lad from a Small Gharbia Village in Egypt to Time Magazine's Cover page and how he had made waves in European Football World. Its Speaks Volumes about his Hard Work , Grit , Determination and Dedication.
He continues to inspire hundreds of thousands of people across the globe through his Hard Work, Grit, and his Passion for Football and Religion and his Philanthropy ...!!
MM Rao
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Sources :
https://sportmob.com/en/article/938364-Mohamed-Salah-biography
https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/mohamed-salah-15977.php
https://www.forbes.com/profile/mohamed-salah/?sh=27a530aa63c3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Salah
https://playersbio.com/mohamed-salah-net-worth/
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/41546663