Why Liverpool made Mohamed Salah their highest-paid player in history aged 30
New York TimesIn late 2019, towards the end of another relentlessly hot day scrambling across Cairo’s concrete sprawl in search of fresh information about Egypt’s most famous footballer, one of his former team-mates found it easy to explain why Mohamed Salah had managed to do what only a select few from his country have been able to achieve. Yet perhaps Salah’s path would have been different had he listened to that same player; Hany Ramzy, a defender who represented their country at the 1990 World Cup, before he became a scout in Germany. Salah has scored 156 goals in 254 games since his arrival from Roma for £36 million in 2017 Perhaps it worked out for the best that his time at the club has coincided entirely with Jurgen Klopp, a manager who suggested that the player’s “best years are still to come” on Friday after Liverpool made Salah the highest-paid player in the club’s history at the age of 30. Mane, being the player and personality he is, managed to redefine himself in another position during the final months of his Liverpool career, a period when Salah struggled after his mid-season exertions in the Africa Cup of Nations, and the twin disappointments of Egypt losing that tournament’s final and, in March, failing to qualify for the World Cup.