Mohamed Salah is 34 and still lots of people don’t understand him as a footballer

There is a misunderstanding about Mohamed Salah, whose history and status, not just as a footballer, feeds to the idea that teams should be built around him.

Monday’s World Cup date with Belgium coincided with his 34th birthday and it is obvious that he no longer has the speed that once made him such a frightening opponent.

Yet to some extent, little has changed. There might be a drift towards becoming a “moments” player, who waits before pouncing, but both versions of Salah have needed things to work around him in order for his best version to shine.

He might need someone like Trent Alexander-Arnold, his partner in crime at Liverpool for eight years, to be behind him threading passes quickly. He also might need someone like Roberto Firmino buzzing around and hard-runners in midfield to create the space that can make him so devastating.

By the same measure, with Egypt, he requires Emam Ashour to be on point. He requires Mohamed Attia agitating beside him and he requires Mohamed Hany to spring forward from right back.

The reality is, though he can help try and educate others about what it takes to become an elite footballer, he can’t do it all by himself once a game kicks off. He requires help but he always has.

Though he might stand above everyone else on a pitch because of what he has won and because of the sheer numbers he has consistently produced, it is not and has never just been about him.

And this is not a criticism because without Salah, Anfield would never have dreamed of the impossible. And without him, the cordite in Cairo stays at home because the city has not erupted and Egypt have not qualified for the World Cup since 1990.

Unhealthy impressions have formed: one being that he carries teams all by himself; the other that teams often have to carry him because he does not get involved in the defensive side of the game. The reality is, parts of both arguments are true and parts of both arguments are wrong.

The conversation with Lionel Messi was similar until 2022 when he lifted the World Cup as Argentina’s captain. It was his fifth attempt at winning the competition. He is probably the greatest footballer to play the sport. Yet until Argentina established a system and until they found the right teammates to support him, Messi fell short. The story acts as a reminder: even Messi needs help.

Maybe it is just a coincidence but Messi thrived as the loose forward in Qatar where Argentina mastered 4-4-2. In Seattle, against Belgium, Egypt went with a shape that was similar in possession, with Salah pushing up beside Omar Marmoush in attack, rather than operating from the right flank, as he has tended to with club and country for nearly a decade.

In a Liverpool shirt last season, Salah was on the periphery in a lot of games. He might argue that everything changing around him contributed towards this: the players behind, the players inside, as well as the relay of candidates doing the running, in some cases unsuccessfully. The relationships were just not there — meanwhile, the plan of attack was re-centralised instead around Florian Wirtz, a decision that did not work.

All of this left Salah isolated. With injuries to other players, it seemed like an obvious decision to try him as a centre forward but Arne Slot thought otherwise. In Seattle, Hossam Hassan would spring a surprise that involved three players, including Salah, switching positions.

This did not prove to be a game where one side afforded the other lots of the ball and tried to spring counter attacks. The possession stats were pretty even but Salah did have responsibilities in both phases because he became a No 10 when Belgium moved forward. Hassan had clearly issued him with some defensive instruction.

It was fascinating watching him in these moments. He did not track back as such, putting pressure on the ball, but he occupied a space between Belgium’s two holding midfielders, making them think about what was going on behind. There is a lot to be said about this simple act, one that cannot be measured by the raw data that tends to define the way performances are viewed these days, but with Amadou Onana and Youri Tielemans constantly looking over their shoulders, Egypt’s ratty midfielders had more space, allowing the team to progress attacks.

 

Structurally, Salah helped Egypt. Inside the first 20 minutes, his threat had put Timothy Castagne on a yellow card and he’d assisted Egypt’s opening goal of the World Cup. Ashour, the scorer, had darted in from the left, wrapping a delicious sweeping shot that had to be good because Thibaut Courtois was trying to stop it.

Courtois is now arguably Belgium’s only world class player but they have a few who, like Salah, know their way around a football pitch. Their equaliser came from an own goal by Hany, who was trying to stop Romelu Lukaku, at 33, from steering in a cross seconds after being introduced as a substitute.

Egypt would not get a first World Cup win in the country’s history but Hassan seemed comfortable with that because games against New Zealand and Iran are to follow. A draw was fine, so Salah came off with 15 minutes remaining. Famously, at Liverpool, he hated being dragged off but curiously enough, he had told colleagues at the club where he became a legend that he did not particularly enjoy living and by extension playing in the heat because it reduced the impact of a holiday.

In Seattle, it was pushing 90 degrees by early afternoon. Having put so much into a game that kicked off at midday, it probably made sense to try and close it out with fresh legs. For Hassan, it was a good job it worked out that way. It was later telling in more ways than one that he singled Marmoush and Salah for “giving their all.”