Egypt rallies around Mohamed Salah as AFCON looms amid Liverpool turmoil

As the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations draws closer, Egypt’s hopes rest once again on the shoulders of Mohamed Salah, a talisman caught between personal turbulence at Liverpool and unwavering loyalty to his country.

While uncertainty shrouds his future at Anfield, the Egyptian camp has closed in around their captain, offering not just support, but a reminder of his stature, resilience and legacy.

Salah arrives in Morocco at a crossroads. Benched in Liverpool’s last three league games and omitted entirely from the Champions League trip to Milan, the 33-year-old stunned many when he suggested the club had “thrown him under the bus” for their poor run.

The Reds lie 10th after 15 rounds, with Salah managing just four Premier League goals, raising questions, criticism and sympathy. Yet back home, there is no confusion about his legacy.

“Players like him do not get benched,” striker Ahmed Kouka Hassan insisted on social media, telling Salah to “keep working hard” and reminding him that “every situation in life is temporary, what stays is your greatness”.

Head coach Hossam Hassan added a picture and a message saluting Salah as a “symbol of perseverance and strength”, while winger Ahmed Zizo El Sayed called him “the greatest Liverpool legend of all time”.

Over the years, Salah’s intensity, discipline and refusal to compromise standards have defined both his success and his personality.

Jurgen Klopp, who managed the 33-year-old through Liverpool’s golden years, once said Salah was “never easy, but never difficult”, a relentless worker shaped by the long journeys from his rural village of Nagrig to Cairo as a child.

His former teammates echo the sentiment.

Adam Lallana remembers Salah’s calmness and focus, describing him as someone who “never gets too high or too low”, while James Milner recalls a player so competitive he even hired a chess coach to sharpen his mind.

Salah’s on-field rivalry with Sadio Mané may have been intense, but Klopp insists they “fought for each other”, proof of his ferocious drive to win. He has long been more than just a footballer: a sociocultural icon, an embodiment of faith, and a figure who has changed perceptions far beyond the pitch.

Now, Egypt will lean on all of that. Their quest to reclaim the AFCON trophy, one they haven’t lifted since 2010, begins in Group B alongside Angola, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

It is a formidable group featuring two World Cup-bound teams, and Egypt’s attacking options from Salah to Omar Marmoush, Trezeguet, Mostafa Mohamed and Zizo promise a potent front line.

The memories of near misses haunt Salah: the 2017 final heartbreak, the 2019 shock exit, the 2022 penalty shootout loss, and last year’s injury in the Ivory Coast. Yet he remains convinced: “It will happen, that is what I believe”.

And as rumours swirl of a Saudi Arabian move and Liverpool supporters debate his influence, Egypt sees none of the noise, only their captain.

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For them, Salah’s struggle at the club level is not a burden but fuel. It is an opening for redemption, a fire to be channelled rather than feared. They believe in him because they know him.

They know the boy from Nagrig who defied the odds; the icon who lifted a continent’s pride; the competitor who pushes himself to evolve every summer; the leader who inspires without shouting.

AFCON 2025 may arrive at a moment of personal turbulence for Salah, but Egypt could not have asked for a more determined version of their talisman.

And as the Pharaohs gather in Agadir, one message rings louder than the uncertainty: their captain may be unsettled in England, but in Egypt, he has never stood taller.