LIVERPOOL: When AS Roma agreed to sell Mohamed Salah to Liverpool last June they could well have anticipated that the Egyptian would go on to be a big success with the Premier League club.
What they surely didn’t expect would be that Salah and Liverpool would stand between them and a place in the Champions League final.
But in Tuesday’s Champions League semi-final, first leg at Anfield Roma’s primary task will be to stop the prolific Salah from adding to his impressive 41 goals in all competitions.
The Italian side are a surprise arrival in the last four of Europe’s premier club competition after a stunning comeback against Spanish giants Barcelona in the last round.
Liverpool pulled off their own surprise as Salah, voted Player of the Year by England’s Professional Footballers Association (PFA) on Sunday, scored in both legs of his team’s 5-1 aggregate quarter-final win over Premier League champions Manchester City.
Juergen Klopp, the Liverpool manager, expects Roma’s defenders to give Salah an early reminder, if any were needed, that friendships end once the players are on the field.
“I am pretty sure the Italian defenders are famous for not having friendly games, so I think Mo will feel early in the game that they are not his team-mates anymore and then he can strike back in a football way,” the German said.
Salah left Roma for Liverpool for an initial 42 million euros (37 million pounds, $52 million). In an offseason when the Premier League spent record sums and Neymar would soon go on to change the sport’s financial landscape by joining Paris St Germain for 222 million euros, Salah’s transfer wasn’t unnoticed but was hardly agenda-setting.
It has proved a significant piece of business.
For Roma, it helped balance the club’s books, erasing a big chunk of its deficit at a time when the Italian side was facing potential financial fair play penalties from UEFA.
“Anyone who understands a bit of this business knows that that’s like having a sword pointed at your neck,” said Ramon “Monchi” Rodriguez, Roma’s director of sport and essentially their mastermind in the transfer market.
Selling Salah was a wrench. He combined for 26 goals (scored 15, set up 11) in Serie A in the final season of his 18 months in the Italian capital, second only to Jose Callejon of Napoli. He had quickly become a fans’ favourite. The then-Roma coach, Luciano Spalletti, had helped develop Salah’s all-around game so he was more than just a speedy winger, but an efficient and creative one, too.
As it turned out, $50 million was a bargain as Salah has blossomed into a goalscoring machine very few saw coming at the start of the season.