Egypt won their first ever match at a World Cup by beating New Zealand 3-1 on June 21st. That win ensured they would finish second in their group, qualifying The Pharaohs for the knockout rounds for the first time in history. On Friday, they face Australia with a chance to win their first ever World Cup knockout match.
It has to date been a World Cup to celebrate and to savour for Egypt. And every positive moment for them in attack, every flowing move and every goal, has seen Mohamed Salah involved
in some way. He has been the star and the focal point for his nation at this World Cup, and with each new step their aging talisman helps them to take his legacy grows.
He arrived at this World Cup knowing that, in all likelihood, it would be his final major tournament as Egypt’s key figure. Having turned 34 the day they played their first game, a 1-1 draw with Belgium, it doesn’t necessarily have to be Salah’s final tournament with Egypt. It might not even be his last World Cup. Yet it is almost certainly his last chance to be their focal point. The one who carries them. It is a last chance to further build his legacy.
Salah is inarguably one of the game’s all time great forwards, a player who won everything he could have at Liverpool. He won the Premier League twice, the Champions League, the Club World Cup, Super Cup, FA Cup, League Cup, and Community Shield. Over nine seasons he set records and won trophies. Without Salah, it’s hard to imagine Liverpool winning even a fraction of what they managed with him.
On the strength of that resume, he deserves to be—and will be—remembered as one of the best Premier League forwards of all time. A strong case can be made that he quite simply is the best. Yet for as much as he did, and as much as he put Liverpool on his back at times and carried them to glory, he also won all that he did as part of one of the most talented squads in club football.
With Egypt, on the other hand, it’s always been a case of nearly and not quite good enough. They’ve come second twice at the Africa Cup of Nations in Salah’s time, but as part of a national team squad that tends to slot in behind the perennial favourites in African football and is seen as another step below that globally, Salah’s talent alone has never quite been enough.
Such is the reality, though, for any player who doesn’t play for one of the game’s elite national teams, no matter how individually great that player might be. African football legend George Weah never managed to will Liberia to the World Cup. Samuel Eto’o played in four with Cameroon and retired as their all-time leading scorer but in those four appearances Cameroon won a single match and never advanced past the group stage. Didier Drogba played in three with Cote d’Ivoire, winning a game in each but never making it out of the group stage.
Leaving Africa, it took Lionel Messi five tries with Argentina before he managed to win. Ronaldo now is at his sixth and Portugal’s best finish in any was fourth back in 2006. Even for two of the greatest players of all time, both playing for countries consistently ranked amongst the best in the world, actually managing to win a World Cup can be nearly impossible—and often is.
At the end of the day, the list of legends who never even came close is far longer than the list of those who have succeeded. That is the simple reality. And so the question of legacy. The question of what counts as success if you can never, realistically, actually reach the pinnacle.
There will, it’s likely safe to say, be no trophy lift for Egypt in the coming weeks. Salah will not add a World Cup to his achievements. However his legacy is tallied up, it will not include the sport’s single most prestigious title. Expecting it to, though, would never have been realistic. And so what we and Egyptians and maybe even Salah himself can look forward to when we put that aside is at least one more game.
Australia are up next for Egypt on Friday, and it’s a winnable one. Not an easy game by any means, with Egypt rated FIFA’s 26th best side and Australia 28th. It’s a game, though, Salah and his teammates will go into fully believing they can, perhaps even should, win. It’s a game where a superstar, a nation’s undisputed all time great and one of the few in the conversation as the best African footballer of all time, can be the one who makes the difference.
There will be for Salah and Egypt at least this one more game. And if he cannot realistically hope to carry Egypt to World Cup glory in the twilight of his career as Lionel Messi finally did with Argentina, Salah does have at least this one more chance in to put his nation on his shoulders. A game that if they win it means another. Another game; another step for Egypt; another first to celebrate on the international stage.
Perhaps for France or Spain or Germany or England or for Brazil or Argentina, the measure of legend and legacy at the absolute highest levels will always be predicated on whether that player has won a World Cup. For Salah, as for Weah or Eto’o or Drogba before him, that would never have been a realistic or achievable standard. Salah has, though, as of today taken Egypt further than any of the other greats in the history of African football.
Now, he and Egypt get at the very least one more game. And we get at least one more chance to watch Salah star at a World Cup. If he and Egypt win, we get one more. We saw Mohamed Salah play his final games at Liverpool this season as a sad march towards a disappointing end. It was a depressing, disheartening way to say goodbye to a legend after nine glorious years. A sour end note on an otherwise glorious club career and the legacy he built.
At least here, now, at this World Cup against Australia, there is a chance for something of a better goodbye. A chance for one more win. And then who ever really knows? Get a little lucky. Win the next. Go on a run. See what happens. Legacy for Salah isn’t in lifting the World Cup, it’s in his next 90 minutes of football. Try to enjoy it, to soak it in, because it might be the last chance to watch one of the greatest players of all time to carry his country to somewhere they’ve never been.
