Mo Salah is on fire. I know it. You know it. Every defender in the Premier League Knows it.
The man has been doing madness every single week this season and all of a sudden, he’s being talked about as a legitimate Ballon d’or Contendor.
However, is it really all of a sudden? In the four years since Mo Salah has returned to the Premier League with Liverpool, he has become the fastest Liverpool Player to reach 100 Premier League goals. He’s helped Liverpool break their three-decade Premier League trophy drought. He’s won the champion’s league. He’s become the all-time top goal scorer in a single Premier league season. And finally, his sheer presence has led to a decrease in hate crimes towards Muslims.
What can’t the man do?
From budding young prospect to Chelsea reject, to Merseyside’s Egyptian King; Mo Salah has had quite the character arc.
Today, I thought it would be fun to take brief trip down pretty recent memory lane to unpack how Mohamed Salah has gotten to the point that he is at today. So, how good is Mo Salah. And does he deserve the Golden ball?
Moving along, we’re gonna start this one off with a brief look into the early life and come up of the Egyptian king, then close things off with my opinion on whether he is a genuine contender for the Ballon D’or or not.
Table of Contents
Early days: life in Egypt
Salah’s story is a story of sheer dedication, sacrifice, mind over matter and an out of this world work ethic. Much like many people who go on to become successful professional footballers, from as early as he sensed the opportunity, his entire life was dedicated to the game.
The man is nothing other than an inspiration. But I’m sure you already knew that. After all, he is an African playing in arguably the biggest team in England and performing at a level higher than the vast majority of footballers that have ever taken to the pitch across the world.
That’s a bold claim, I know. But his numbers and accolades speak for themselves. Don’t worry, we’ll get to those in a bit.
Anyway, to do what he’s done takes guts and insane self believe. Luckily for Salah, he has both in heaps and droves.
“I wanted to be a big name. I wanted to be something special. I cannot promise you that it was clear to me what I would become. I was like, ‘I will be something special’.”
The words of the man himself when recounting his early days.
And speaking of the early days, despite the fact that he had the support of his family, he didn’t have it easy.
Born in Basyoun, Egypt in 1992, Egyptian Messi began his footballing journey at just 7 years of age. Although, back then all he was doing was kicking the ball about in the streets with his brother and a few mates.
He used to look up at stars such as Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo Nazario and Francesco Totti in the Champions League and dream of ascending to those heights.
In any case, it wasn’t until he was 14 that things really began to take off for him. You may recall me mentioning dedication and sacrifice.
Well, initially he had to travel half an hour to his local club. A travel duration which turned to an hour and a half when he was first scouted and moved to a larger club out of the city.
Eventually when he hit the big time in Egypt and moved to a club by the name of Al Mokawloon, his travel time one way ended up being four and a half hours. That’s nine hours of travel a day. He would make this journey 5 days a week for about 3 years. Meanwhile just the thought of leaving my basement and exposing myself to sunlight gives me anxiety.
As for Salah, don’t let anyone ever tell you he hasn’t put in the hours necessary. Hours on the bus that is. Which is ironic because Mourinho didn’t seem to like him. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
He started off as a left back, but after he showed an insatiable eye for goal, pace, agility and positional awareness in attack, he was moved up to the right-wing role. And his hunger for goals was so insatiable that there was one instance where his team won 4-0, but he was seen crying in the dressing room because he didn’t get on the scoresheet.
Knowing what the man has gone on to become, things are starting to make sense, right?
Breakthrough at Basel
Anyway, it wasn’t too long before he gained European recognition.
By the 2011/12 season, Salah was 19, and was a certified starter for Al Mokawloon. Swiss side Basel had been keeping tabs on him for some time, and after he impressed in a friendly between basel and the Egypt under 23s, he was to off Europe.
Fun fact, he was signed to replace the power cube himself, Xerdan Shaqiri, as he went off to Bayern Munich. A man who, funnily enough, would later find it hard to get into the Liverpool first team because of Salah. Funny how that worked out.
Embed from Getty ImagesBack to Mo Salah’s come up and, having arrived in a foreign land, not knowing the language and having the pressure of replacing Basel’s most popular player, he understandably had to go through a bit of an adjustment period.
But it must not have been all that much of an adjustment period based on the fact that, a year later, he was the Swiss Super League Player of the year having won the league title, played 29 games, scored 5 and assisted 4.
But it wasn’t just on a domestic level that Salah was impressing. He was putting in some work in Europe too.
Drawn against Tottenham Hotspur and then Chelsea in the Europa League in his first season, he scored against both of them in successive rounds, knocking Spurs out in the process.
Hehe Spurs.
Despite Basel eventually being knocked out by Chelsea, he was firmly on the radar of Europe’s elite. A year later, he scored against Chelsea two more times. This time in the group stages of the Champions League.
Liverpool and Brendon Rodgers had seen enough. They simply had to make Salah a red. There was one problem, though. Somehow Jose Mourinho got hold of his phone number and gave him a call, convincing him to join Chelsea.
Chelsea reject
£11 million later, at 22 years old, on the 23rd of January 2014, Salah had officially hit the big leagues. Once a budding Egyptian talent, now playing for a team that in the previous two seasons had won the Champions League and the Europa League in succession. Doesn’t get much more big time than that.
He didn’t have a bad start to life in London, either. Brought in halfway through the season, he managed 2 goals and 2 assists in 10 appearances. Might not seem like much, but for someone adjusting to the Premier League from a relatively much weaker league, it really isn’t too bad.
Embed from Getty ImagesUnfortunately, It didn’t get much better. Like. At all. Whether it was nervousness, a lack of faith from the manager, better options available, or maybe a combination of all three, things didn’t work out. Only 8 appearances in all competitions the next season. Three of which were in the Premier League, two in the Champions League.
What I said earlier about it maybe being a lack of faith from the manager? Scratch the maybe. This was definitely a large contributing factor.
“I expect players to give me problems. I love problems. But a lot of them didn’t and they’ve made it easy to choose my team for Saturday.”
The Words of Mourinho in reference to Andre Schurrle, Filipe Luis and Salah himself after they failed to impress in a league cup match against Shrewsbury.
By the time that the winter transfer window came around, Salah was yet again on the move after having spent just over a year in the blue side of London. This time on loan, with his destination being Florence.
Before we go on, it’s important to note that Chelsea ended up winning the league that year and did it again two seasons later. So, at the time, and maybe even to this day, this decision isn’t seen as a bad one to many people, regardless of how Salah turned out. There’s a very good argument that the leap to a big team like Chelsea was too big and came too fast.
If this story sounds like it might be familiar to you, it’s because it is. Chelsea do have a habit of letting go or underutilizing young, top talent, after all. For Example, between mid 2013 and early 2015, Chelsea let go of Romelu Lukaku, Kevin De Bruyne and Mohamed Salah.
As a testament to how ruthless they can be, even Juan Mata was let go in this time period. This was despite the fact that he had won the Chelsea player of the year award for two years in a row before he was shipped off. However, I can understand that last one. Mata must’ve been over the moon to join the greatest Premier League team of all time. David Moyes’ Manchester United…
Italian Renaissance
Now in Florence, Salah made a fast start. Only half a season played for Fiorentina, but 9 goals and 6 assists in 26 appearances. This included a winner against Inter and two against Juventus in the Copa Italia.
Naturally, he was an instant hit. So much so that Fiorentina wanted to make the loan deal permanent. Salah unfortunately did not feel the same way and left them on read.
Instead, he ended up joining Roma on loan at the beginning of the 2015/16 season, where for the first time since his first season with Basel, he could finally put a full season of playtime under his belt. And it’s kinda mad how time works because one of his childhood idols, Franceso Totti, was still there!
Now in probably the most stable situation he had ever been in, he got to work. He had shown himself to be a goal scorer when given the chance to shine, that was nothing new. But his time with Roma played a very large part in turning him into the beast he is today.
Embed from Getty ImagesHe was playing in Serie A, so it shouldn’t be surprising that his tactical and positional awareness improved immensely. But it was more than that that improved. He became a leader. A player that would drive the attack.
15 goals and 7 assists in 42 appearances in his first season was enough to make him Roma’s player of the year and make him a permanent signing for £13 million. 19 goals and 15 assists in 41 appearances in his second season was enough to help Roma get within touching distance of the Scudetto.
However, by that time, Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp this time, had seen enough… Again. Salah signed for Liverpool for £36.5 million in mid-2017. However, according to The Times, Salah was actually Liverpool’s fourth choice winger. Julian Draxler, Julian Brandt and Christian Pulisic were apparently all ahead of Salah on Liverpool’s shopping list. But all three of them opted not to join the reds for one reason or another.
As with all transfer rumours, it might be best to take those claims with a pinch of salt, but seeing as it adds an underdog element to this story, I’m gonna leave it in.
Merseyside’s Egyptian King
Explosive start
That takes us through to Salah’s current playground. Anfield.
Now it’s important to note that many people had their doubts about this transfer.
“Wait a minute? Liverpool just signed a Chelsea reject for almost £40 million? Yeah, I understand he did alright in Serie A, but this is the Premier League we’re talking about.”
I don’t have proof, but I’m almost certain at least one person said that verbatim.
In any case, if you thought he hit the ground running in Fiorentina and Roma. Phew, I have news for you.
By the 17/18 season, the Premier League had been around for about 25 years. Up until that point, the record for most goals scored in a single season was 31. 3 players had reached that goal tally up to then: Alan Shearer, Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Suarez. With Suarez, of course, also being a Liverpool player when he equalled that tally.
Salah rocked up and decided to snatch the record for himself. No sharing allowed. 32 goals, with 10 assists in his first full season in the Premier League. 44 goals and 16 assists in all competitions.
Embed from Getty ImagesAnd this guy was going nuts this year. Every single week he was putting in goals and providing assists from all sorts of angles. If you had him in your FPL team and you didn’t win your league that year, you undeniably brought shame on your family.
And I should know, I had both him and Suarez as my captains during their crazy years and I still lost both times. My failure haunts me every day.
Anyway, Salah picked up most of the individual awards you can think of. Premier League player of the year, PFA players player of the year, Football writer’s player of the year, the golden boot. Heck, he even won the Puskas. Although that last one was probably a bit of a controversial pick if I’m honest. To be fair, this entire awards ceremony was.. Um, a little odd.
Despite all of these individual accolades, up to that point, the last piece of silverware that Salah had won was the league with Basel back in 2014. Liverpool finished as runners up in the Champions League that year and, he even finished as a runner up in the 2017 AFCON.
However, if you keep pushing, something will eventually have to give.
Trophies at last
In the next two years, his form and his entire team’s form for that matter, more or less remained immaculate. Suffice to say the silverware came flying in at blistering pace.
First up was the Champions League. Number 6 in Liverpool trophy case. Next, the Premier League, Liverpool’s first ever and their first league title in 30 years. The great drought was over. Unfortunately for United fans across the globe, the memes were dead.
Instead, the universe dealt them a good ol’ Uno reverse card. The memers became the memed.
The UEFA Super Cup and Club World Cup winners’ medals found their way to his trophy cabinet too. And in all honesty, currently at 29 years of age, you wouldn’t put it past him adding more and more silverware to his locker.
I’ve been speaking about Salah achievements for a while now, but trust me, I’m not doing them justice. He’s consistently been on another level ever since he got back to the Prem in 2017. If you want proof, here’s a short list of his personal achievements and broken records:
- First of all, look at his goal contributions per season since his first full season at Liverpool. This is out of this world. Guaranteed at the very least 19 goals in the league per season, starting from a wide position is mental.
- He holds the record for the most goals scored in a single Premier League Season with 32
- He’s the first player to outscore 3 Premier league teams in a single season. That’s right, he scored more goals than Swansea, West Brom and Huddersfield in the 17/18 season. That’s kinda funny, I’m not gonna lie.
- He’s the highest scoring African in Premier League history with 107 and counting, beating out Drogba in Second place. For context, it took Salah 88 fewer games to match Drogba’s goal tally.
- He’s the fast player to reach 50 goals for Liverpool. Doing it in only 69 games.
- And finally, he is Liverpool’s top goal scorer in the Champions League. Beating Steven Gerrard by 1 goal at the time of writing this article. Which is quite fitting seeing as though it was Gerrard who let the world know exactly what was going on halfway through Salah’s first season in Merseyside: “we are witnessing the start of greatness”.
At the time of writing this article, the man has scored 15 goals in 15 appearances with 6 assists this season. I’d put money on him continuing to put up insane numbers. He’s a man possessed.
Does Mohamed Salah Deserve The Ballon D’or
Okay, so before we wrap this one up, we have to briefly address a rather common question that’s popped up quite a bit in the past few months. Does Mohamed Salah deserve the Ballon d’or?
Well: No. And It’s not even close.
While it’s very arguable that he is in the best form of anyone in the world in the current 2021/22 season, by no means has he had the best calendar year.
If we take a quick snapshot of the stats of players in the top five leagues, he sits in 7th place for combined goals and assists. Still very impressive, but nowhere near enough to bait a Ballon d’or win.
If we look at major trophies, Messi and Lewandowski for example have each won major trophies and broken some seriously impressive records this year, making one of those two far more likely and frankly more deserving of the award.
But that’s just my opinion. I do plan on doing a more fleshed out Ballon d’or post once the winner is announced, so we can get into it then. But at the moment, it’s a no from me on the Salah Ballon d’or claims.
Embed from Getty ImagesIf you haven’t already clocked it, I think he’s a fantastic player. For sure one of my favourites at the moment, so I’d be more than pleased to see him pick up the golden ball one day. But who knows what the future holds.