Is it any wonder that players' egos can spiral out of control when they're spun a constant narrative of the entire world revolving around them?
Perhaps it was always destined to end like this. The whole narrative arc of Mo Salah and Liverpool seemed to have become distorted beyond rational comprehension the minute that the club decided celebrate the decision to agree a new contract with him by sitting him on a throne at Anfield with the lid of the Premier League trophy on his head.
The truth at the heart of the argument between the player and the club over his non-selection in Liverpool’s first eleven is that Salah is wrong. His performances for them this season have not warranted continued selection in their first team, and fact that he seems either unable or unwilling to see this is one of the more curious elements of this strange - yet somehow also completely predictable - turn of events.
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That tail-off has been sudden. Salah scored 29 goals and created 18 assists in 38 Premier League appearances, last season. In the 13 appearances he’s made for them this season, he’s scored four and created two. There’s a case to be made that the lavish amounts of money spent on Hugo Ekitike, Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak during the summer has disrupted Liverpool’s attacking momentum to the extent that it doesn’t primarily serve Salah any more.
But at 33 years of age - he’ll be 34 by the time next season starts - what else was he expecting? The player himself is giving every impression of raging at the dying of the light, and he’s not the only one to have got caught in this trap over the last few years.
A certain Madeiran egomaniac has been doing exactly the same thing for several years, and now that his bezzie is the sex-offending President of the United States, he’s getting all the encouragement he needs to believe - and let’s be absolutely honest here; he doesn’t need much - that he can win the World Cup with Portugal next summer at 41 years of age.
We’re now at the stage in the story of this particular terrible person that we’re almost willing it to happen. If nothing else, there was certainly something extremely funny about him getting sent off in Portugal’s penultimate qualifier and then the teamimmediately looking ten times better in his absence.
The players of Uzbekistan, Colombia and AN Other may well venerate the concept of him as a cultural icon, but once games against him start it’s doubtful that they’ll sacrifice their own prospects of success on the altar of his dreams of winning the World Cup.
Of course, it would be the worst thing in the history of football were he to actually win the damn thing, even his personal contribution turned out to be neglible, but even under those circumstances perhaps the only reasonable reaction would be to celebrate winning an entire World Cup with ten players and a hanger-on in their team.
The timing of the outburst certainly feels suspicious. Mo Salah is the most famous Muslim footballer on the planet, and the extent to which he’s been coveted by Saudi Arabia has been an open secret for a long time. Is it a coincidence that he’s suddenly decided to completely detonate his relationship with Liverpool three weeks before a January transfer window opens? You may believe that. I couldn’t possibly comment.
Or perhaps there’s something altogether mundane going on here; a refusal on the part of a bordering-on-middle-age man to accept that he’s not as young as he used to be any more. Elite level football requires a phenomenal level fitness that is difficult to maintain beyond one’s mid-thirties, and no-one’s exempt from this, no matter how much the Saudi Pro League might wish to persuade us otherwise.
It comes to all of us in different ways. The dying of the light and the greying of the hair. It’s a simple fact of life that we all get to a certain age when things start to change in this respect. And when this collides with somebody who’s been told that they’re the greatest thing in the world for years if not decades, the results are always likely to be messy.
It should also be added that football fuels these egos, and it’s not just clubs like Liverpool with their ‘Egyptian king’ schtick. Media coverage of the game increasingly feels obsequious to the point of being nauseating, with the 21 players on the pitch often mentioned only during matches as thoough they’re nothing more than NPCs in the ongoing drama of whether the Biggest Names will get all the silverware and records that they demand.
Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, all a succesful player has to do is switch on their mobile phone, open their favourite social media app and search for their name for another delicious spoonful of adulation and validation. It’s a problem that seems extremely prevalent in our broader society, really. There are too many people walking around these days thinking their shit doesn’t stink.
When it’s all but impossible to avoid such global adulation, we certainly shouldn’t besurprised when those egos spiral out of control. Lionel Messi does a good impression of humility, which he primarily achieves by barely ever saying anything in public. What his private opinions are remain laregly out of sight, and that, rather than his football ability, might even be the most admirable thing about him.
If anything, it should be more of a surprise when an elite-level player demonstrates any degree of humility whatsoever beyond the faux. The level of indulgence that they experience is beyond what any ‘normal’ person could even begin to understand. When do you think the last time was that somebody said “no” to Cristiano Ronaldo and he took any notice? When our cultuire routinely treats people with exceptional ability at football like a deities, don’t be surprised when they get a God complex.
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