On Monday Mohamed Salah was declared an African Footballer of the Year by the BBC. The Egyptian attacker of Liverpool is thus the successor of Riyadh Mahrez, who was honoured in 2016. It is the first time in his career for Salah that he takes up the individual prize. With this, he has earned Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Liverpool teammate Sadio Mané, among others.
For Salah, the election is the crowning achievement of an impressive year. From the turn of the year, the 25-year-old flanking player was responsible for seven goals for AS Roma from the turn of the year in fifteen AS Roma league matches and then made the switch to Liverpool for an amount of 42 million euros. For the time being, in the case of the English superpower, he will continue this line effortlessly. With thirteen hits in sixteen duels, Salah is the top scorer in the Premier League and shot his country Egypt in October personally to next year’s World Cup in Russia. With the election of the BBC he follows in the footsteps of Yaya Touré and Jay-Jay Okocha, among others, who both won the prize twice in the past.
“I am very happy to receive this award, it is always special to win a prize. I think I’ve had a great year,”says Salah. After Mohamed Aboutrika in 2005 and Mohamed Aboutrika in 2008, he is only the third Egyptian citizen elected by the BBC as African Footballer of the Year,”I want to become the best Egyptian of all time. I always follow my own path and I want to be an example to all people in Egypt.
Is Mohamed Salah the best African footballer of the moment?
