Mohamed Salah, rich and lonely avenger

Previous Direct

Mohammed Salah,

for friends, he left the Stade de France locker room this Friday accompanied by the youngest of his teammates, Harvey Elliott, on his way to Liverpool's last training session before the Champions League final.

He was smiling, like someone embarking on a Caribbean cruise, but despite being surrounded by colleagues he communicated almost exclusively with Elliott, who is 19 years old and watched him admiringly.

Away from the revelry of the group, which he mostly ignored, the Egyptian lived the practice quietly installed in his bubble.

He is usually habitual with soccer professionals who enjoy the privilege of saving energy at the expense of the legs of others.

The isolation is complete when —in addition— the prerogatives that the coach grants him on the pitch in exchange for a goal are complemented by the best salary in the squad.

"It's time for revenge," Salah repeats since Liverpool eliminated Villarreal in the semifinals and the crossroads of the tournament faced Madrid in another final.

"It's time to settle accounts," he said at La Cerámica, in a message that he has since reproduced in three public appearances without his companions seconding him in sentiment.

“The 2018 final was the hardest moment of my career;

Coming out in the 30th minute of a game like this is the worst thing that can happen to a player.

When I found out that we had lost, I was in the hospital.

There was no TV."

The signs that codify football are rarely explicit.

This Saturday Salah meets again with the darkest corner, but also the brightest of his professional career.

Facing Madrid in another Champions League final brings him back to the bitter night in kyiv, when Sergio Ramos dislocated his shoulder forcing him to leave the field with the score 0-0 in a match that Liverpool would lose 3-1, exactly in the eve of the contractual renegotiation that raised his salary from two to 14 million net per season, according to sources close to the company.

The biggest jump up the pay scale in

history .

Jürgen Klopp, the coach, still regrets what he considers a rash move.

Because when the club allowed itself to be carried away by the fascination of the figures - Salah's 32 goals in the Premier in the 17/18 season - it incurred the comparative offense of Firmino and Mané, whose physical display and understanding of the collective game were neither within Salah's reach nor were they irrelevant to his individual brilliance.

's wealth possible

, continued to earn two million euros net.

To the outrage of the captains and most of the players, who already observed Salah as the only one protected from the physical rigors imposed by the coach.

Goalscorer decline

Since the final in kyiv, Liverpool has gained in experience and technical resources but, paradoxically, the union that had preceded the group until the summer of 2018 was not strengthened.

Only Klopp's emotional intelligence was able to redirect the situation until the conquest of the Champions League in 2019. The fissures, however, were still there, hidden under the plaster.

When Klopp wanted to solve it by putting Salah on the market in 2021, not a single club in Europe bid to lower the starting price of 120 million euros.

On the contrary, the offers went in the direction of Mané.

The last one, from Bayern, can leave Liverpool without its true engine of attack.

"What Ramos did to Salah was a masterpiece," said Giorgio Chiellini, the wisest of the markers of the last decade;

"I was aware that falling like that, nine times out of ten you break your opponent's arm."

Salah's ligaments healed.

His finishing splendor did not return to the same levels.

He went from scoring 44 goals in the season that ended in kyiv, to successively scoring 27, 23, 31 and 31 this season.

Perhaps, because he should have sought life a little more alone.

Statistics indicate that his colleagues assisted him less.

In Paris he is left with Elliott's friendship, the happiness of his excellent position, and, in his own words, a thirst for revenge.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on

Exclusive content for subscribers

read without limits

subscribe

I'm already a subscriber