Mohamed Salah

Egypt · Premier League · FW,MF · EGY · age 34

Mohamed Salah in Egypt's black away kit at the 2021 AFCON final.
Photo Franco237 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

The last dance

The shoulder, the tears, and one last chance

Mohamed Salah arrived at the 2018 World Cup as one of the best players on the planet, fresh off a 44-goal season at Liverpool that had taken him to the Champions League final. Then Sergio Ramos pulled his shoulder out of its socket in that final, and everything that followed was pain. He returned for the group stage against Russia, clearly unfit, and Egypt went home without a point.

In the years since, Salah has won the Champions League, the Premier League, every individual award English football offers. For Egypt, the story has been different: a penalty shootout loss to Senegal in the 2021 AFCON final, followed by another shootout loss to the same team in World Cup qualifying, the miss that kept Egypt out of Qatar entirely. At 34, with 116 caps and 67 goals, he remains his country's greatest modern footballer with almost nothing to show for it on the international stage.

This World Cup is likely his last realistic shot. Egypt qualified the hard way, and the squad around Salah is stronger now, with Omar Marmoush's emergence at Manchester City giving them a genuine second threat. Whether that is enough to make up for a decade of near-misses is the question Salah will carry into every match.

2026 World Cup squad profile

Team
Egypt
Position
FW
Squad role
Projected starter
Position rank
#1
Intl caps
116
Intl goals
67
Intl assists
35
0.74(model rating, 0–1)
45.8%

See Mohamed Salah on the full Egypt scoring list →

Recent form

Cooling

2025/26 club form vs the player's multi-season baseline (0.33 vs 0.56).

Major tournament stats

TournamentMPMinGAxGShKPPrgPPrgCTklInt
AFCON 20232147100.9448410
World Cup 20182189201.66561101
All tournaments4336302.5109141511
Event data from StatsBomb open data, covering the World Cup, Euro, Copa América and AFCON finals. Small per-tournament samples. Totals shown, not per-90 rates.
▸How to read this table— 11 columns explained
MP
Matches played in the tournament.
Min
Total minutes on the pitch.
G
Goals scored (penalties in normal play included; shootouts excluded).
A
Assists: passes that directly led to a goal.
xG
Expected goals: summed per-shot quality (StatsBomb's model).
Sh
Shots taken.
KP
Key passes: passes that led to a shot.
PrgP
Progressive passes: completed passes moving the ball ≥10m toward goal.
PrgC
Progressive carries: carries advancing ≥5m toward goal.
Tkl
Tackles won.
Int
Interceptions.

Tournament scouting radar

Defending

Tackles won / 90
0.27
28
Interceptions / 90
0.27
46
Ball recoveries / 90
5.36
95
Blocks / 90
1.07
42
Clearances / 90
0.00
17
Pressures / 90
17.41
82

Passing & progression

Prog. passes / 90
3.75
77
Key passes / 90
2.41
95
Prog. carries / 90
4.02
26
Pass completion %
78.3%
62

Possession

Carries / 90
27.59
51
Dribbles / 90
1.61
69

Per-90 rates from major-tournament event data (StatsBomb), ranked vs 65 forwards with ≥270 minutes in the same finals. Higher = better.

286
Career matches
22,568
Career minutes
159
Goals
70
Assists
111.8
xG

Career percentiles

Goals / 90
0.63
93
xG / 90
0.45
97
xAG / 90
0.17
95

vs 189 FW players with ≥3,000 career minutes in the dataset. Higher = better.

Career: goals & xG by season

GoalsxG
Career goals and xG by season, 11 seasons from 2013-14 to 2022-23, 159 total goals, 111.8 total xG.Career goals and xG by season, 11 seasons from 2013-14 to 2022-23, 159 total goals, 111.8 total xG.081624321415151617181920212223

Season-by-season

SeasonClubLeagueGoalsAssists
2013-14ChelseaPremier League1050121——
2014-15ChelseaPremier League33300——
2014-15FiorentinaSerie A1690863——
2015-16RomaSerie A342,723146——
2016-17RomaSerie A312,4731511——
2017-18LiverpoolPremier League362,907321024.17.5
2018-19LiverpoolPremier League383,25022820.29.4
2019-20LiverpoolPremier League342,876191019.07.8
2020-21LiverpoolPremier League373,07822519.36.2
2021-22LiverpoolPremier League352,762231323.79.7
2022-23LiverpoolPremier League121,057435.52.3
FBref data ≤ 2022-23. Rows tagged wiki are top-scorer entries from Wikipedia and only carry goals.
▸How to read this table— 6 columns explained
MP
Matches played in that season (start or sub counts as one).
Mins
Total minutes on the pitch — better signal for workload than MP alone.
Goals
Goals scored (penalties included).
Assists
Passes that directly led to a goal (FBref attribution).
xG
Expected goals — per-shot quality scored 0–1 by distance / angle / pressure, summed across the season.
xAG
Expected assisted goals — the xG of shots created by this player's passes, summed.
FBref data ends 2022-23; current-season rows tagged wiki come from Wikipedia top-scorer tables and carry only goals.

Rest of the Egypt squad