Salah

He even seemed galvanised by so much hostility and scored his team’s second goal against Maccabi with his right foot. ‘He showed he was mentally tough by turning the pressure into something positive,’ says his former manager Murat Yakin.
The match was a springboard to his future achievements in the Champions League.

Egypt were into the tournament’s semi-finals and had clinched their ticket to South America! Everyone was celebrating except Salah. ‘After the game he went into his room, closed the door and started crying,’ Diaa el-Sayed would remember some time later. ‘He didn’t even want to come to dinner. I asked him why. He said he had missed too many scoring chances. It was true. In the second half, he must have missed at least fifteen. We won anyway, but the boy couldn’t rest so the next day we went to the training ground. It was me, him and the ball.

He is a boy who focuses on what he’s doing, comes to training on time and works hard to improve his weaknesses

What were you able to teach him? ‘I worked with him on his psychology, football and technique. If you want to become a great player, if you want to make your family and your country happy, I told him, you have to train and train and get better as a player and as a person

Then it was off to Cairo. Arab Contractors had provided him with an exemption, a letter allowing the boy to miss class so he could get to the pitch by 2.30pm. Training began at 3.30pm and finished at 6pm. He would have a quick shower, then run to catch the four or five minibuses home. If all went well, he would arrive between 10 and 10.30pm. There was just time to have dinner and go to bed. The same routine would start all over again the next day. It was a tough, very tough life for a fourteen year old. But as he would say years later: ‘You don’t get anything without giving something. And I’ve always been capable of making lots of sacrifices for football.’