Salah has the last word in penalty exchange

The penalty itself had said more than enough: the eyes of the world and the weight of his nation upon him, Mohamed Salah had stepped up and coolly, delicately, unflinchingly feathered the gentlest of Panenkas past Mat Ryan, the Australian goalkeeper, and into the net. Egypt had the advantage in the shootout. They would not relinquish it.

But it was what came after the penalty that mattered even more. We were, at that stage, deep into the bluff and double bluff of the supermarket own-brand psychological warfare that football calls mind games. Ryan had been introduced with just a couple of minutes of extra time to go; ergo, Australia’s manager Tony Popovic was saying to Egypt, he must be a penalty-saving expert. 

Ryan, formerly of Brighton, did his best to play the part. It was hard to tell from a distance, but being an Australian sportsperson, we can assume he was offering his opponents a few well-chosen words of encouragement before each Egyptian kick. He guessed right on the first. He guessed wrong on the second. Both went in.

And then Salah stepped up. Ryan looked gleeful. He chuntered away for a little longer this time. Salah seemed to be studiously ignoring him, concentrating on the ball, but when he turned to face him, his eyes looked haunted, pained. It has become a familiar look over the last nine months. He measured out his run-up. He took a breath. He set off towards the ball.

A moment later, the ball in the goal, Ryan on the floor and Salah’s arms in the air in jubilation, the forward – currently, we should remember, between full-time jobs – turned round to look at his antagonist. He was grinning. Not smiling. Certainly not smirking. Grinning. Mohamed Salah, for the first time in what feels like a long time, was enjoying himself.

The last year has brought Salah professional despondency and, far more devastating, personal agony. Like the rest of Liverpool’s players, the Egyptian has been assiduous in making sure the death of Diogo Jota – a year ago on Friday – was presented as a tragedy for his family, not as a factor in how many football matches anyone won and lost.

With kindness, though, Salah seemed to find it as hard as anyone to hide his anguish (not, it goes without saying, that he should have to do so). His moment of communion with the Kop, after scoring on the opening day of last season against Bournemouth, may well have been the most emotionally resonant, most painfully human image of the entire campaign.

And then, within a matter of months, what would turn out to be Salah’s final season at Liverpool began to unravel. He was dropped to the bench as Arne Slot sought to arrest the champions’ alarming decline; when he complained publicly, in a car park outside Elland Road, it felt inevitable that what should have been his valedictory tour would end in acrimony and despair.

When he came back into the squad, the team, it was as a shadow of his former self. His announcement, late in March, that he would not see out the last year of his contract, was met not with despair, but with something closer to sorrow, resignation; yes, unfortunately, this would have to be Salah’s final year at Liverpool. There was a consensus that parting would be best for all concerned.

Throughout it all, Salah’s eyes tended to betray his suffering. They were invariably raw, as though he could not quite accept or even understand quite why it was all going so wrong, so quickly. He spent a large proportion of his final season at Liverpool, what should have been a time of nostalgic bliss, looking miserable.

It has, then, been heartening to see that demeanour change over the course of the World Cup. Salah is under pressure with Egypt, of course: that was abundantly clear from the shirts on show inside the arena known either as the AT&T Stadium, the Dallas Stadium or, best of all, Jerry World. Egypt and Liverpool shirts appeared to be being treated as synonyms. He is the player everyone comes to watch; he is the player everyone expects to deliver.

Whether it is the change of scenery, of company, or even of mission, Salah appears revived by this tournament. He danced on the streets of Vancouver after one of Egypt’s group games; his Instagram account has moved away from nothing but moody gym selfies and into warts-and-all reportage of the daily lives of his teammates with the national side. (Like many men in their early-to-mid 30s in a professional funk, he appears to have taken up photography.)

That is what the grin said, even more than the penalty. Salah knows what is at stake here; as he celebrated with his teammates, he seemed to be on the verge of tears at having secured Egypt a first-ever World Cup knockout win. But he is not daunted by it. He is not cowed by it. He is not suffering from it. He is, for the first time in more than a year, having fun.

Photograph by Hector Vivas/Fifa via Getty Images