Mohamed Salah

Mohamed Salah Hamed Mahrous Ghaly (born 15 June 1992) is an Egyptian professional footballer who plays as a right winger or right midfielder for Premier League club Liverpool and captains the Egypt national team. He is widely regarded as one of the best players of his generation and one of the greatest wingers of all time. Dubbed the "Egyptian King", he is the all-time top foreign goalscorer in the Premier League and the all-time top African goalscorer in the UEFA Champions League.

At international level, Salah represented Egypt at youth level before making his senior debut in 2011. Following his performances at the 2012 Summer Olympics, he was named CAF Most Promising African Talent of the Year. Since then, he finished as runner-up in the 2017 and 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, and was top scorer during CAF qualification as Egypt qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Salah was named CAF African Footballer of the Year (2017 and 2018), BBC African Footballer of the Year (2017 and 2018), and was selected in the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations Team of the Tournament, 2021 Africa Cup of Nations Team of the Tournament and the CAF Team of the Year on several occasions.

Salah is regarded as a symbol of national pride in Egypt for his achievements and was named in Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential People in 2019. Salah has also been credited for raising the profile of Liverpool among Egyptians.

Swiss Super League club Basel had been monitoring Salah for some time, so following the Egyptian Premier League suspension, the club organised a friendly match with the Egypt national under-23 team. The match took place on 16 March at the Stadion Rankhof in Basel, and despite only playing the second half, Salah scored twice, helping the Egyptians to a 4–3 win. Basel subsequently invited Salah to remain in the city for a week's training. On 10 April 2012, it was announced that Salah had signed for Basel on a four-year contract starting from 15 June 2012. He initially found it difficult to settle, having arrived unable to speak the language and been signed as a replacement for Xherdan Shaqiri. Salah scored on his unofficial debut on 23 June 2012 against FCSB during a friendly match, a 4–2 defeat. He made his official Basel debut in a UEFA Champions League preliminary stage match against the Norwegian club Molde on 8 August, coming on as a substitute in the 74th minute. He made his league debut on 12 August against Thun, playing the full match.

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