Footballers who have overcome adversity: Mohamed Salah

At BiG we celebrate individuals who despite challenges, choose to overcome. Today we celebrate Mohamed Salah, an inspirational footballer. The Egyptian player Salah is often regarded one of the best players in the world. 

Salah’s love and passion for football was born at an early age of 7 years old. Often playing the game with his brother, the passion for football ran through his family with both his father and uncle who also played it at a youth club in Nagrig village. 

At 14 years old, Salah embarked on his professional career with El Mokawloon. Playing for the club, the was located four and a half hours away from where Salah lived, meant the Salah would have to make a 9 hour round trip every single day. When talking with Liverpool’s official website, Salah said “As I said, it was a difficult time, but I was young and I wanted to be a footballer. I wanted to be a big name. I wanted to be something special.”

Salah found strength and perseverance in the encouragement from his family, in particular his father. 

Salah Ghaly worked behind the scenes to ensure Salah’s growth and progression within the football industry. His father highlighted the importance of making sacrifices when Salah was younger, for instance he supported Salah in his long commute to training. 

Salah represented Egypt internationally in his youth before then in 2011 making his senior debut. 

Notably, after the 2012 Summer Olympics Salah was dubbed CAF’s Most Promising Africann Talent of the year! The footballer has also been named the CAF African Footballer of the Year (2017 and 2018), BBC African Footballer of the Year (2017 and 2018) and was selected in the 2017 African Cup of Nations Team of the Tournament and the CAF Team of the year on numerous occasions.

Who is your favourite footballer and why? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section! 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Salah