The story was beautiful. A charismatic coach, Jürgen Klopp, who takes a talented but inconsistent winger, Mohamed Salah, and makes it one of the most formidable attackers on the planet. Seven years of collaboration, a Champions League, a Premier League … Their duo brought Liverpool to the top. So when the Egyptian is asked to appoint the best coach he has known, you logically expect an obvious response. But football is not always an exact science. And even less a world of feelings.
Spalletti, not klopp
Salah's response, in an interview to France Footballis enough to surprise. Even shock. “The best coach I had?” Spalletti. »» Luciano Spalletti, his coach at AS Rome. Not a word for Jürgen Klopp. A deafening silence. A forgetfulness that looks like a tackle from behind. It was the man who made him pass from a good player to Anfield living legend that he chooses to ignore. We have experienced more supported tributes.
How to explain such a position? Is this the consequence of the frictions that appeared between the two men in the last season of Klopp in Liverpool? We remember their visible altercation on the edge of the field. Salah, often described as a well-placed ego player, would he not have digested to be sometimes put on the bench? This declaration is in any case like a settlement of cold accounts.
Salah Snobe Klopp spectacularly: the reason revealed
Recognition is not of this world
Regardless of reason, the observation is brutal. Recognition is a rare commodity in football. Salah proves it again. One can imagine the reaction of Jürgen Klopp, now withdrawn from the benches to enjoy his family. Such a declaration, coming from a player he has so much brooding and progressing, must have a bitter taste. Almost that of a betrayal.
This media outing will not change history, but it says a lot about human relationships in high -level sport. Once the page is turned, the memories are fading and the resentments remain. Mohamed Salah may have won the Champions League with Klopp, but it is obviously with Spalletti that he learned the most. Or at least, that's what he wants to make believe today.
