In June 2017, Liverpool agreed on a club-record 34 million pounds fee for Egyptian forward Mohamed Salah from Roma. Before his Liverpool transfer, Salah had played for Chelsea before joining Italy’s capital club.
When Salah agreed to the move, Liverpool were very far from their glory years – a pale shadow of the famous Liverpool sides. He was considered a decent forward with the potential to help the Merseyside club in their rebuild.
Salah went on to feature in 31 games the season he signed, netting 15 goals and adding 11 assists to his tally. Since that signing, the club has gone on to win major trophies including the UEFA Champions League and the English Premier League.
Salah has proven to be a world-class signing. Anyone who watched the player at Chelsea would never have pegged him to be at this level for the Reds.
His performances for Liverpool have been nothing short of remarkable. The Egyptian holds some of the most impressive records in the Premier League and in Liverpool’s history.
Mo Salah is the highest scoring African player in Premier League history surpassing some great African scorers like Didier Drogba and Yakubu Aiyegbeni.
He is also Liverpool’s all-time leading scorer in England’s topflight league, and many believe he gets less credit than he deserves when the best players in the world are being ranked.
For four consecutive years between 2018 and 2022, the player has ranked amongst the top ten best players in the world.
The question then is, why isn’t Salah ever in the conversation for the Ballon d’Or?
Football’s golden ball award has been won by only one African since its inception in 1956.
Who else but the great George Weah? Many who missed out on seeing Weah feature every week probably think he had a decent run in a year when football was far from its peak.
However, that is far from the case. Weah was an African forward brought by legendary coach Arsene Wenger into Europe in1998 with AS Monaco and went on to entrench himself from that year until the 1994/95 season when he became top scorer of the UEFA Champions League at Paris Saint Germain.
In the summer of 1995, Weah signed for AC Milan and went on to compete with the legendary Italian side for four seasons. There, he would go on to make history as the first African footballer to win the prestigious award.
His stellar performances for PSG and AC Milan put him ahead of every other player that year. In 1995 when he won the Ballon d’Or, Weah netted 29 goals and assisted seven times for Milan and Paris. He won the Champions league, the league cup and grabbed the African best player award in the period.
He also scored 46 goals in 114 appearances in a Milan shirt and became a trailblazer for the next generation of African players.
In arguably his closest year, Salah on the other hand played 49 times, scoring 23 and assisting on 13 occasions. In that year, Salah won the African Best player award, he was top scorer of the Premier League, Best player in England and won the Champions league with Liverpool.
He however placed fifth in the rankings that year.
Many argue that Salah deserves to win the award as he’s been one of the most consistent forwards in the last decade.
Here are three reasons the Egyptian King should be crowned the best in the world.
Four straight years in the Ballon d’Or Top 10 (2018-2022)
Since the 2017/18 campaign, Mohammed Salah has featured in France Football’s top 10 players in the world, finishing in the top five on two occasions.
Salah has banged in the goals for Liverpool in all competitions and has etched his name in all-timer debates as he enters the final years of his career.
The 32-year-old led Liverpool to its first Champions League final since 2007 in 2018, and though the Reds fell short to record winners Real Madrid in that fixture, he managed to bounce back a year on against Tottenham Hotspur in the final, scoring a decisive penalty to secure the sixth title for the Merseyside Reds.
Salah would choose to be far from comfortable with his exploits and proved to be crucial for Liverpool a year on in the 2019/20 season where the Reds ended a 30-year drought and won the Premier League for the first time since 1990.
20 goals for Liverpool for eight straight seasons
Inevitable, decisive and ever productive. Mohammed Salah has clinched and broken loads of records since he joined Liverpool. One of the most intriguing records is his 20-goal successful run for the Reds in all competitions since his signing.
He has been an absolute delight for any manager he’s worked with as Red and is tipped to clinch 63 or more goal contributions in the Premier League this season by TNT experts considering his 30 goals and assist tally after the first round.
Salah has shown over the years that he’s not only been one of the best Premier League players, but he’s proven that at his very best, very few players in the world come close to him.
More goal contributions in the premier league than Thierry Henry
One can’t have a big conversation around the greatest Premier League players without mentioning Thierry Henry.
The French icon scored a total 175 goals in the league for Arsenal and won the golden boot four times. Salah has been crowned season top scorer on three occasions and is on course to winning his fourth in England in his eighth season as a Red.
The Egyptian is on 175 goals and counting but has more assists than the Frenchman (82), while Henry sits with 74.
The numbers don’t lie. It seems there’s no stopping the Egyptian talisman this season as Liverpool get ever closer to their 20th Premier League title.
Salah has always been the heart of the team and has shown over the years why he should be ending his career with at least one golden ball.
Some of the recent winners of the award do not have a calendar year resume as good as the Egyptian had in 2019. The questions continue to linger.
What must an African do to be the best in the world? This year, Salah already has 21 goals and 17 assists in all competitions this season. That is more than his potential contenders for the awards this year, Vinicius Junior who has 13 goals and 9 assists, Jude Bellingham 8 goals and 7 assists and Robert Lewandowski – 25 goals and 2 assists.
For some critics, the blame falls directly on Africa’s football Federation (CAF). Others say the scales are skewed when it comes to Africans.
One thing is however clear—Salah’s shout for the award comes from a valid place. Since Ronaldo and Messi said goodbye to their European careers, Salah has been one of the players so close to the award, yet he is still very far from the award.
With a ball at his feet and space to run in, Salah is one of the wonders of the world. His pace, poise and finishing put him above many players of the sport. To many Liverpool fans, Salah has been the best player in the world at least for one season in the last four to five campaigns but will the Ballon d’Or ever come?
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