Mohammed Salah has never had a season like this one. He’s scored 32 goals in 38 games in his first year with Liverpool and has the Reds in third place in the Premier League standings. That record has Liverpool fans literally singing his praises.
Liverpool supporters came up with a new chant in Salah’s honor: “If he’s good enough for you / He’s good enough for me. If he scores another few / Then I’ll be Muslim too!” reported Agence France-Presse.
Egypt’s Salah is one of the most well-known Muslim players in England, and certainly the talk of the Premier League since Liverpool paid 34 million pounds (almost $48 million) in a transfer fee from Italy’s AS Roma last summer. He is also very open with his faith, often bowing in prayer after scoring goals.
British fans are notoriously the most poorly behaved in the world, according to statistics kept by FARE Network (formerly Football against Racism in Europe), a London-based nonprofit that studies discrimination in soccer. It analyzed 1,378 football matches during the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons and recorded 539 incidents of racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, nationalist and Islamophobic nature, according the group’s monthly reports. British fans were responsible for 59 of those incidents, more than any other country.
And then along came Salah, and fans have quite literally changed their tune. FARE Executive Director Piara Powar said this is the first time I’ve seen such an exuberant, overt, positive appreciation that includes [a player’s] religion. Liverpool fans have taken to affectionately calling Salah “The Pharaoh” or “The Egyptian King.”
There have been other songs, too: “He’s running down the wing, Egyptian king!” and “We brought the lad from Roma and he scores in every game,” “He’s Egyptian and he’s brilliant and Mohamed’s his name!”
It’s another case of a simple truth in professional sports, Piara said: “Winning makes everybody feel good. Salah is playing very well, which excites fans, making them more apt to accept his ethnic and religious background when they may have not before.
Piara added: “Good players break down barriers. We know that an appreciation of someone as a player does lead to a look into their identity and, for many fans, an acceptance of their identity.”
It’s easy to go overboard about songs like this, Piara cautioned. A broad social movement is not solely made up of happy football fans, but this certainly helps.
Mohammed Salah expects his goals to continue after scoring for the 30th time with Liverpool in a stunning season for the Egyptian striker.
The 25-year-old needed 36 appearances in all competitions to become the 13th player in the history of Liverpool to reach this number of goals in a season, and the first since Uruguay striker Luis Suarez four years ago.
"It's great to score 30 goals in your first season with a club like Liverpool," Salah told Liverpool website.
“It's a big thing, so I'm very happy about it, but I have to keep looking forward to scoring more goals. I feel well and this is the most important thing, and certainly there is still more in the way.”
Salah has scored 30 goal faster than any Liverpool player since George Allan 121 years ago, leaving more than two months in the season to increase his score before heading to play with Egypt in the World Cup.