Mohamed Salah wants opponents to dread coming up against him next season as he hunts his first Ballon d’Or....CONTINUE READING
Salah is one of the prime candidates for the prestigious prize handed to the best male footballer ahead of its annual announcement in October this year. The 2022 edition will, for the first time, select a winner from the previous season (2021/22) rather than the previous calendar year.
The Egyptian, 29, faces competition from a range of stars including Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema and fellow Liverpool star Sadio Mane, both of whom enjoyed stellar seasons.
But having narrowly missed out on the Premier League title and then lost to Benzema’s Real in the Champions League final, Salah has admitted he is the underdog for the award.
He told France Football: “I want to be recognised as the best player in the world. And the Ballon d’Or is at the forefront of my goals. I want to win it to join George Weah, the only African. It’s true that I was shocked by my ranking in 2021 (seventh).
“For this year, the defeat against Real Madrid is a disadvantage, even if I played a good game in the final. But it doesn’t cancel out everything I’ve achieved for months and if I’m not Ballon d’Or in 2022, I’ll do everything I can to be the next one.”
Salah went on to reveal how he constantly strives for new ways to improve his game. He admitted he spent last summer’s holiday in Greece thinking of ways to get the better of defenders.
And it certainly paid off, with the forward scoring 31 goals and notching 16 assists across all competitions last campaign. Yet Salah knows he will need to reinvent himself again next season if he is to claim football’s most coveted individual award.
He said: “I want my opponent to say to himself, ‘damn, him again!’ My goal is that he doesn’t have time to recover. He must feel threatened every moment for 90 minutes.”
