Regardless of whether Mohamed Salah can lead Liverpool to Champions League glory this season, the Egyptian will enter the 2018 World Cup as arguably the best player in the world. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo will still make the headlines, but in terms of goals scored and impact on his team, there has been no better player than Salah this season.
The question is, how far can Salah take his nation in the 2018 World Cup?
The Star Names
Cristiano Ronaldo tasted major success with Portugal in 2016 as he led his country to success in the European Championships. It wasn’t pretty to watch at times but Ronaldo can point to the fact he has won a big trophy with Portugal.
Messi on the other hand, is yet to taste a big victory with Argentina. They reached the World Cup final in 2014, only to lose to Germany and the tournament win Russia will be Messi’s last chance to take his country to glory and be crowned the greatest player the world has ever seen.
Both Ronaldo and Messi will be expected to take their teams far at the 2018 World Cup but the level of expectation on Salah will be much less.
Low Expectations
This will be only the third time Egypt have played at the World Cup finals and they are yet to win a match. So, the priority for The Pharaohs must be to win a game and they have been drawn in Group A with Russia, Uruguay and Saudi Arabia.
Salah will start his World Cup adventure with a match against Uruguay, who must be considered favourites to win the group. They have a tough defensive line-up featuring Diego Godin and Jose Maria Gimenez, both of which play for Atletico Madrid in Spain. This will be the toughest match for Salah and Egypt to score a goal.
However, their remaining two fixtures, against Russia and Saudi Arabia, provide the perfect opportunity for Salah to make history with Egypt and lead them to their first win at the World Cup.
A Chance to Make History
Russia are the hosts and playing the host nation in-front of their own fans can be tough but the Russian team have not been good ahead of the World Cup. In fact, they are one of the lowest ranked nations in the tournament and at the time of writing, Egypt find themselves 46th in the world, with Russian down in 66th place, some 20 places behind in the rankings.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt’s third opponents are not expected to qualify and this match provides another great chance for Salah to score at the World Cup and take Egypt to a win.
Taking maximum points from both Russia and Saudi Arabia is not out of the questions and if Salah can produce the moments of magic has for Liverpool this season at the biggest event of them all, we could see history for Egyptian football as they not only win a match at the World Cup but qualify for the next round.