I
There are numbers, of course, if you choose to want them. Records are enough in which to drown. Discourse piled sky-high. Here: a colourful infographic setting out his most recent milestones, begging your finger for a double-tap. Here: a TV host in expensive trainers pointing at a very large screen. First for contingent goal involvements. First for final-third shimmies. Look at that shot throb velocity: up a staggering 0.28 on last season. After the break, some nonentities will debate today’s hot question: is Mo Salah enjoying the most venomous Premier League season ever? Stay tuned.
II
The minibus comfortably holds three people. Uncomfortably, maybe seven. It’s hot, and getting hotter. The potholes rattle your vertebrae like cymbals. After this minibus, you get another, and then another: four hours to Cairo, maybe five hours back to Nagrig through the rush-hour traffic. It’s a colossal gamble. Fail, as most do, and you’re on the scrap heap at 16 with no formal education. No safety, no simplicity. What sort of person – what sort of footballer – do we think steps off that bus? How hard do they run? How much do they need to make this time count?
III
Give him what he wants! This is the refrain these days. There’s a contract unsigned, there’s a Premier League almost won, he’s the best player in the world, he loves the club, you can’t put a price on joy and belonging, give the little dancer what he wants. The sensible contrarian columnist feels duty-bound to oppose. He’s 32, well actually. Giving Salah a new contract affects the business Liverpool can do down the line. This is the perfect way to say goodbye. We can go round and round like this for days. But what if we’re all asking the wrong question?
IV
It’s 2012 and Salah is live on Egyptian television, begging an Al Mokawloon official to let him move to FC Basel in Europe. For a young Egyptian player of promise, this in itself is a transgressive act. The big clubs may be chaotic and corrupt but they pay well, have little need to sell and thus hold all the power. Egyptian football has been suspended after the Port Said disaster, and as the official quotes Basel a price three million euros, Salah sees his dream evaporating. “But I won’t be able to do anything,” he pleads. He’s only 19 years old. But already he realises that destiny is not something you make, but something you take.
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V
Everything is pared down to its simplest form. Physically, there is no ounce that does not need to be there. He prefers resistance-band work to weights in the gym, which add unnecessary bulk and slow him down. And speed is still the thing: speed of thought, foot, escape, freedom and the certainty that this ball will be his and not yours. There is still no safety, still no simplicity. Get a big injury, at the age of 32 with no contract, and oblivion awaits. What sort of person do we think steps off that bus? How hard do they run? How much do they need to make this time count?
VI
The tales of Salah’s generosity are legion. Some probably need to be taken with a pinch of salt. But even if only a few are true, a picture emerges. £560,000 (€535,000) for the local hospital in Baysoun. £2.5 million to the National Cancer Institute in Cairo. Thousands of tonnes of food during the pandemic. An ambulance centre, oxygen cylinders, a water treatment plant, a girls’ school. A significant donation to the Egyptian Red Crescent as they tried to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. “I am calling on the world leaders to come together to prevent further slaughter of innocent souls,” he wrote in a rare unguarded moment on social media. “Humanity must prevail.”
VII
Thought exercise: what if his next contract comes from the Saudi Pro League? We know he cares passionately about developing football in the Middle East. We know the Saudis are paying better than anyone else at the moment. We know, too, that signing Salah to the Pro League will act as a PR coup for one of the worst regimes on Earth and make a lot of lives very tangibly better in the process. It’s fine to feel whatever you want to feel about this.
VIII
I don’t know what Salah wants and neither do you. But I know how hard he worked to get into this position. Those hours on the bus. Those hours in the gym. The dexterity with which he escaped from the toxic politics of Egyptian football, a dexterity equal to any he has displayed on the pitch. This is his dwindling time, his last few years of true influence, his moment of maximum power. In a decade he will be 42 and of no use to anybody. This is the last big footballing decision he will make.
IX
Give him what he wants. Why does this narrative feel so inadequate? Perhaps because it’s based on the idea that Salah can still be strong-armed into signing a contract if the offer is lavish enough, reduces this incredibly complex personal decision to pure pecuniary instinct. As if this is a simple transaction between employer and employed. As if every pound of flesh has its price. As if, for all Salah’s talent and influence, this is still essentially Liverpool’s agency, Liverpool’s decision to make, Liverpool who would be “letting him go”. What does Salah want? Perhaps the pertinent question is: to what extent is it in the power of any football club to grant it?
X
Every so often, he tries to go back home to Nagrig. Once word gets around that he’s in town, thousands of wellwishers will descend on his house, blocking the roads and trapping him indoors. How about: let him go wherever he wants, on his terms, with your blessing, and your thanks? How about: do not presume to own a part of him because he occasionally makes you happy? How about recognising that adulation and persecution are two sides of the same coin?
XI
But of course, it will always be easier to retreat into stats and records, the rows and columns of our built world. To treat Salah as free content, a hanging steak with a price tag, rather than a messy lived experience, the breathtaking complexity of existing as a human being at the crux of so many other existences. Perhaps it’s no wonder we love staring at Salah’s feet. It saves us the trouble of looking into his eyes.
