Mohamed Salah is leaving Liverpool and honestly, even if you hate Liverpool, you have to sit with that for a second. Because what we just witnessed over the past eight years was something genuinely special. The kind of career that makes you remember why you fell in love with this sport in the first place.
Mohamed Salah arrived at Anfield in 2017 for £36.9 million from Roma and half the football world thought Liverpool had overpaid for a player who couldn't hack it at Chelsea. How that aged. The man went on to score 228 goals for the club, win the Premier League, the Champions League, the FA Cup, the League Cup, and basically drag Liverpool back to the very top of English football almost single handedly at times. Klopp called him irreplaceable. Gerrard said he was one of the greatest to ever wear the shirt. Ian Rush, who knows a thing or two about scoring goals at Anfield, gave him his flowers too. When those three are all saying the same thing you probably just accept it.
What made Salah so maddening for everyone else was how consistent he was. Year after year. Goals, assists, Golden Boots, records broken. You kept waiting for the drop off and it never really came. He is 32 now and still finished this season as one of the top contributors in the league. Most players that age are managing their minutes and doing punditry warm ups. He was still cooking.
There is something a little sad about how it ended though. No big send off announcement, no farewell tour, just a quiet exit after what felt like months of contract noise. The Egyptian King deserved a cleaner goodbye than that. Liverpool fans will know what they had when they spend next season watching someone else try to fill that left side.
As Klopp himself once said, Salah makes the impossible look possible. That is about as good a summary as anyone is going to write. A proper legend. No argument.
Let me know your thoughts.