Read 4 minutes7 July 2026 06:15 AM IST
Much of Mohamed Salah’s life has been in the shadow of Lionel Messi. The Egyptian was a young prodigy and started playing senior football when Argentina was at the peak of its powers. The comparisons that followed were plentiful, and just as every country’s left-footed right winger died in football with a contrasting profile to Messi’s side, Salah also suffered.
Many people remember the successful nine years of ‘Egyptian Messi’ in Liverpool. Most forget he was a journeyman before arriving on Merseyside: FC Basel, Chelsea, Fiorentina and AS Roma – five years and four clubs, painful rejections across Europe before a love affair with Liverpool developed.
Now, both ‘Mo’ and Messi will meet in the last 16 of the World Cup – the first time Egypt will face Argentina in the tournament. And while Argentina maintain their position as favorites – Salah will never have a good chance of dethroning the King.
It’s fair to say that the small island nation of Cape Verde left a little bit of Argentina behind before they were knocked out of the World Cup. Argentina ran 140 kilometers in the humid humidity of Miami and were hanging on by the thinnest of threads as Cape Verde refused to break. Facundo Medina first fell to cramps, then Enzo Fernandez and then Nicolas Gonzalez lost the world title to an ankle injury.
Messi ran more than 10 kilometers, the first time he has done so in this World Cup. Head coach Lionel Scaloni’s press fell apart as the players succumbed to the physicality of the moment. Argentina, which had been smoldering smoothly until then, suddenly saw several warning signs flashing everywhere. In Scaloni’s words: ‘It was a matter of defending like a cornered cat’.
The coach’s first thought after the match was that his team would have less time to recover before the match against the Egyptians. Their success in Qatar came down to young legs that were ready to run until the wheels came off. In Miami, the Argentine’s conditioning raised eyebrows.
A one-man show
The lack of goals from players not named Messi is a serious concern for Scaloni. 7 of Argentina’s 11 goals have come from the expected source of talent, but the rest are where the cracks start to show. A strike from Giovanni Lo Celso, a left-footed goal by Lisandro Martínez, a penalty converted by Lautaro Martínez and an own goal by Dianne kept aside, the rest of the Argentines didn’t take chances.
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The failure of Lautaro and Julian Alvarez in particular has held Argentina back. Alvarez, who scored 29 goals in a single season with Atlético Madrid, looks a strange version of himself. During Argentina’s qualification for the World Cup, he had four goals and three assists, but in 200 minutes of World Cup football, the striker did not score a goal, assist or assist. Lautaro’s comeback in front of goal has also suffered a similar blow.
During this crisis in Argentina, Salah has the chance to upset another big man at this World Cup. Egypt have scored at almost the same clip – scoring nine goals and conceding eight in their last six World Cups. Testing Argentina’s fading physicality could open a can of worms. Salah today is a successful, elite attacker in his own making, having scored Panenkas goals at the World Cup and taking on the Pharaohs in creating yet another African success story on football’s greatest stage. He has come a long way from the lazy comparisons to Messi who elevated his position in football and then brought it down. But with Argentina reeling, the big man’s crack may never come again.