One question for each 2026 World Cup team. Can Mohamed Salah make history for Egypt at his first and only healthy World Cup?
Would you love me in a Bentley? Would you love me on a $95 bus from downtown Boston to Gillette Stadium? Footnote is asking 48 questions, and they’re all about the 48 teams at the 2026 World Cup. This post is part of our Group G preview. You can also read previews of Iran, Belgium, and New Zealand.
Can Mohamed Salah make history for Egypt at his first and only healthy World Cup?
Outside of Egypt, everyone remembers that Sergio Ramos ruined Liverpool’s chances of winning the Champions League in 2018.
But in Egypt, Sergio Ramos ruined the nation’s first World Cup in a generation.
In May of 2018, Salah was finishing up one of the great individual seasons in European history. After a campaign where he racked up 43 goals and 14 assists in all competitions, Salah could have tied the whole thing together by overcoming Real Madrid in the Champions League final. Then, early on in the final, Sergio Ramos hooked Salah’s arm in a plausibly deniable but probably on purpose wrestling hold and dislocated his shoulder.
Salah was forced to leave the game, and for Liverpool fans the rest is history.
But for Egypt fans, the Champions League final had ramifications beyond that one game. In the fall of 2017, as part of the magical, incandescent run that seemed to stretch for his entire Liverpool career, Salah had delivered one of the most consequential single kicks of a soccer ball in 21st century Egyptian history. With a first World Cup berth since 1990 on the line, Salah stepped up and slammed home a 94th minute penalty kick to beat DR Congo and clinch a spot at Russia 2018.
It was a moment of overwhelming emotional weight for two reasons. First, despite being one of Africa’s most successful footballing nations, Egypt have rarely qualified at the World Cup. Prior to that appearance at Italy 1990, Egypt’s only other World Cup was in 1934 — and that’s despite a stellar record in the Africa Cup of Nations that includes three straight titles in 2006, 2008, and 2010.
But more to the point, Egyptian football had not totally recovered from the upheaval in the country in the wake of the Arab Spring in 2011. With so much of wider society in turmoil, Egypt failed to qualify for any major tournaments between 2011 and 2016. After a run to the final of AFCON in February 2017, that qualification seemed to confirm that Egyptian soccer was back, and maybe even better than before.
But after his shoulder injury, Salah just could not get entirely fit in time for the World Cup in Russia. He played, but he never seemed quite right. Egypt limped to three losses in a relatively weak group that also contained Uruguay, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. The Pharaohs went home from Moscow in 31st place.
After missing out on 2022 in heartbreaking circumstances — a second penalty shootout loss to Senegal in a matter of months — Salah will finally have his moment this summer. And the World Cup is truly the last stage upon which he is yet to make his mark.
Can he?
Despite an interminable feud with his manager making his final season with Liverpool far more annoying than it had to be, Salah put together okay numbers in the end: 12 goals and 10 assists across 41 games in all competitions is not great, but it indicates he is not completely washed.
He will also be playing a much different role for Egypt than he did for his club. Whereas Liverpool were largely trying to move away from a “everyone else defends really hard so Mo can do what he wants” model, Egypt very much know what time it is. This will be a squad composed mostly of experienced pros who play for one of the big teams in the Egyptian domestic league — Pyramids, Zamalek, or Al-Ahly –and understand that their job is to keep games close so their country’s best-ever player can shine.
Perhaps the one exception to that rule will be Omar Marmoush. The Manchester City striker saw his playing time drop off precipitously in the second half of the season, but some analytics indicate that from a chance creation and passing perspective he was still quite effective — and that’s on the back of an insane 2024-2025 season in which he was one of the best all-around attackers in Europe with Eintracht Frankfurt.
Egypt have never made the knockout stages of the World Cup, which is a huge missing piece of history for a country with so much success on the continental level. Like 2018, this should be a relatively forgiving group: Belgium are definitely better than Egypt, Iran are probably better but it is impossible to know how they will perform and New Zealand are arguably much worse.
But this time, and based on his age probably for the only time, Mohamed Salah is healthy. If the base of the team can remain solid and Marmoush can channel his chance creation skills, it is all set up for Salah to finally have the World Cup moment that never happened eight years ago.1Just going by ELO ratings Belgium are ranked 19, Iran are 31, Egypt are 51, and New Zealand are 68.
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