Salah will reign supreme!

Everyone wants to talk about Mohamed Salah. And why not? The Egyptian footballer has burst onto the scene in one of the most spectacular individual seasons in recent memory, scoring 43 goals for Premier League giants Liverpool in just 47 appearances.

Scoring at that ratio has been a feat normally reserved for Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo in recent history, at least where Europe’s top leagues are concerned. In fact, there are already murmurings of Salah winning the Ballon d’Or, the top individual gong which can be awarded to a player.

Whether Salah can break those two’s decade-long stranglehold on the golden trophy remains to be seen, but if he carries on like this, he’ll certainly be in the conversation.

My opinion on Mo Salah is somewhat complicated by the fact that I’m a Manchester United fan. It’s ingrained into me to be anti-Liverpool, a feeling sewn into me since I was a little lad growing up in a Merseyside town and bickering with my mates on the playground.

It was easy back then, with United winning everything and Liverpool constantly failing. Every year being ‘their year’ until around March time when expectations were shifted.

Now, I’m panicking. Thanks to Salah, Liverpool are on the brink of a Champions League Final appearance if they finish the job and dispose of Roma in tonight’s semi-final second leg.

Salah struck twice against his former club in the first leg at Anfield and inspired his side to a 5-2 victory.

And now, a one-off game beckons which could see Liverpool lift ‘ol’ Big Ears’ for the sixth time and force their rabid band of supporters to use two hands when they gesticulate wildly to anyone who will listen.

‘Six times lad, six times!’

I shudder at the thought. But with Salah, anything is possible. The guy is a goal machine … but more than that, he’s a loveable role model, much more concerned with helping the team than chasing individual feats.

I want him to fail, of course I do … I HAVE to, but that’s the extent of it. I can’t hate him, as much as I want to, he’s just too nice of a guy. Tribalism is a funny thing.

The last Liverpool player to put the fear into the league and genuinely have United fans worried for the safety of their last bastion of superiority, the fact Liverpool had never won the Premier League title, was Luis Suarez. A player most opposing fans had little difficulty disliking.

That was too easy though. If it wasn’t his Dracula impressions as he went around targeting the necks of any defender he didn’t like the look of, his racial abuse of Patrice Evra, his World Cup handball to break Ghanaian hearts, his penchant for winding up opposition, his … well I could go on, but you get the idea.

Salah is different though. This is the guy who plays with a smile on his face, always stops for fans in Liverpool town centre and plays the game the right way.

Some observers find the most interesting thing about Salah’s goals are his celebrations and their reception. Because consistently, Salah does two things after scoring. First, he hugs his teammates, a typical response. But then, he performs sujood, the Islamic act of prostration.

In Islamic thought, sujood is perceived of as the physically lowest, but spiritually highest, position a person can take. Though many other Premier League footballers are Muslim, Salah is the only one who regularly prostrates on the pitch.

The Liverpool fans often respond with a catchy chant that media pundits have suggested is a demonstration of inclusivity.

But admiration for the player is universal and growing because he’s the epitome of class off the field too. He returns to Egypt to feed the poor during Ramadan. When he was offered a luxurious villa for sending Egypt to the World Cup with a last minute penalty, he passed on it and instead chose to build a school and amp up the ambulance services in his hometown of Nagrig.

In fact, in the wake of Egypt qualifying for the World Cup Finals for the first time in 30 years, as many as one million votes were spoiled in the country’s general election with legitimate politicians having their name crossed out and Salah’s written underneath.

Shops and hypermarkets around Bahrain are desperate for more stock of Egyptian national team jerseys after witnessing a stampede to buy them so that fans can get Salah’s name printed on the back. In a way, it is quite amazing, but it also presents in a microcosm how football can unite people.

In a country such as Egypt, which has had its share of political troubles in the 21st Century, the fact that a simple footballer can be the one person everyone can agree on and love, so much so that he comes runner-up in a presidential race that he wasn’t even a part of, is incredible.

Salah offers 90 minutes of bliss every week, at times twice. And, that permeates a sense of wellness that’s keeping the smiles on the faces of all Egyptians from fading, wherever they live. How incredibly beautiful is that?

At the same time, he’s wiping the smiles off the faces of opponents, left, right and centre.

The true test for Salah now will be to play well in Russia during the World Cup Finals and repeat the feat next season in the Premiership.

While I think it’s much more likely he will carry on his success rather than become ‘the next Michu’ (Swansea’s one season wonder), Ronaldo and Messi have been setting records and retaining remarkable consistency for years, albeit in an easier league surrounded by better players, so the time is right for Salah to pick up the mantle.

Time will tell, but for now he has a Champions League semi-final to win. And, if Liverpool make it to the final, millions around the world will be praying for him to play to his full potential and score … but I won’t.

In my perfect world, former United hero Ronaldo will notch a 95th minute penalty winner for Real (preferably a controversial one to make the Scousers’ grievances even more potent) to break Liverpool hearts, and then the Spaniards will buy Salah in the summer for a ridiculous sum so that I can actually enjoy watching him play and score for fun.

Unfortunately, you don’t often get what you want in football.