On the face of it, it should be a mismatch. Egypt, the most successful country in the history of African football, against Cape Verde, the least populated state to have ever qualified for an Africa Cup of Nations. But almost everybody at the Cairo International stadium for Friday's Afcon qualifier between the two will beware the ominous precedent.
It is fresh enough in the memory to warn against any complacency from the home team. Back in January, an extraordinary group phase match at the Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast saw the upstart North Atlantic islanders take the lead against the North African aristocrats and then conclude a see-saw game by snatching a 98th minute equaliser for 2-2. The result left Egypt depending on results elsewhere to scrape out of the group.
By two weeks later, it was clear that any past hierarchy counted for little. Cape Verde went within a penalty shoot-out of reaching the Afcon semi-finals. Egypt were long gone, eliminated at the first knockout round.
Granted, they were without their outstanding player, their leader and totem. Sitting in the grandstand of the Houphouet-Boigny stadium on that nerve-shredding evening against Cape Verde was Mohamed Salah, nursing the sore hamstring that had curtailed his participation in the tournament.
Salah’s subsequent departure to have treatment for the injury at his club, Liverpool, generated anger among the Egyptian coaching staff, many Egyptian fans and leading former Pharaohplayers.
Some went as far as to question the commitment of Salah, who has been the shining light of Egyptian football in the decade or so since the country’s league was plunged into violent crisis, to the national cause.
The criticism grew when Salah’s agent’s forecast that the Egypt captain would be out of action for as much as four weeks proved wildly inaccurate. Salah was back playing, scoring and assisting for Liverpool within six days of the Afcon’s conclusion.
Fast forward to a new season, and Salah leads Egypt into their 2025 Afcon campaign amid a swirl of fresh questions around commitment and loyalty – but this time with Liverpool under scrutiny. The club for whom Salah has scored 214 goals, inspired a first English league title for more the 30 years and won a Champions League have allowed his contract to enter its last year.
Very pointedly, Salah drew attention to the uncertainties that limbo creates just after scoring his third goal in as many Premier League matches last weekend. Having added to his fine tally of goals against Manchester United in a 3-0 Liverpool win, his post-match remarks – “as you know, this is my last season,” he said – were guaranteed to make headlines.
On paper, with his lucrative Liverpool contract expiring on June 30, it is Salah’s last season with the club he joined in 2017. In practice, both player and club are expected to discuss proposals that would keep Salah, 32, at Liverpool until at least 2026.
“Nobody at the club has spoken to me about a new contract so I’m just playing this last season and [we’ll see] at the end – it’s not up to me,” Salah told Sky Sports, a clear nudge to the club to indicate where they stand.
Salah is keen to stay, if the terms suit him. Liverpool know what an asset he is on the pitch, and indeed in the open market. Barely 12 months ago, Liverpool turned down an offer believed to be in excess of €150 million for Salah from Saudi Arabia’s Al Ittihad. Out of contract, he could leave without a transfer fee and he remains highly coveted by the leading clubs of the Saudi Pro League.
Within Liverpool’s calculations around keeping their highest earner, the next Africa Cup of Nations are a factor, though not a dominant one. Assuming Egypt come through their qualifying group – besides Cape Verde, it includes Mauritania and Botswana – they would go to Morocco for the finals in mid-December next year and hope to be there until the final on January 18. That would mean potentially missing a larger than usual chunk of the club season.
The scheduling of Afcon 2025 is awkward and atypical, a response to an increasingly cluttered international calendar. The tournament was to have taken place next summer, but was moved because of clashes with an expanded Fifa Club World Cup.
A January-to-February Afcon, as in Ivory Coast earlier this year, was also deemed impossible because the Uefa Champions League, in which many leading African players are involved with their European clubs, has also expanded, with matches now in the January diary.
But the Premier League is especially busy in late December and into the new year. Salah could miss a significant number of club matches, were he still at Liverpool in 2025/26.
The club also appreciate how focused he is on adding a Nations Cup title to his many career achievements. The competition, which Egypt have won seven times, most recently in 2010, has been tantalising for Salah.
He has played in two, close-fought but losing Afcon finals, endured a shock last-16 stage elimination where Egypt hosted Afcon in 2019 and was ruled out of the last attempt with that hamstring problem.
His Liverpool form dipped unusually in the months after his return from Ivory Coast, albeit the dip is set against the exceptionally high bar for consistency he has set.
But he has started this, his eighth Liverpool season on a high. “I had a good summer,” he reports, and came back from his holiday “positive” to a club with a new manager, Arne Slot replacing the long-serving Jurgen Klopp.
Slot has three wins out of three so far, and a new signing to find space for. In an otherwise discreet summer transfer window, the most significant arrival at Anfield is Federico Chiesa, a player who would fit naturally into the right wing position Salah has made his own.
Chiesa, signed from Juventus and with over 50 caps for Italy, is 26 and so can envisage a long future at Anfield should he take to English football. It’s near enough the same age that Salah moved from Italy – he was at Roma – to Liverpool, and set about making history. If Chiesa is to succeed Salah, he has a very hard act to follow.
Egypt, meanwhile, long for Salah to mark his huge impact on the national team with a major trophy. The pursuit of that elusive Afcon for the Salah era begins now, with the hope that Cape Verde will spring fewer surprises than they did the last time the sides met.
