An obsessed Salah retaliates against Real Madrid. Four years of injustice, will he get his revenge?

Mohamed Salah enters his third Champions League final with Liverpool. But this will be different. Personal. Because he still can’t forget what happened the last time he faced Real Madrid in the final. That’s why he’s treating Saturday’s game as payback.

When reporters from BT Sport asked Mohamed Salah which opponent he wanted to play in the Champions League semi-final after the win over Villarreal, they probably expected the usual phrase: “I don’t care, they are both great teams, I’m happy we are in the final,” and so on.

“Well… I want to play against Madrid. I have to be honest, if you ask me personally, I want to play against Madrid. Because we lost the final against them,” replied the Liverpool midfielder.

He then added fuel to the fire when he tweeted after Real’s fantastic comeback against Manchester City

And if that wasn’t clear enough for anyone else, the next day at the Football Writers’ Association awards dinner he was asked if he saw the final as a rematch. “Yes. We lost the final. It was a sad day for all of us… But it’s time for revenge,” Salah replied.

But he carries the bitterness of a four-year-old event with him. In a press conference on Wednesday, he revisited the 2018 final. “I’m very motivated for this game. Especially after what happened in the last final,” the Liverpool winger said.

Of course, the whole thing goes way beyond the lost final. Salah had a dream debut season, with a 32+10 record in the league and 11+4 in the Champions League. He wanted to seal the deal by winning the club’s most valuable competition. But he couldn’t, because he had to leave the field after half an hour.

“Salah will never forget the incident with Ramos,” said Hamdi Nouh, Salah’s first coach in Egypt in 2021.

In the 25th minute of the final in Kiev, Salah ran into the middle of the pitch on an Alexandre-Arnold cross, with Sergio Ramos chasing after him. Salah hooked Ramos’ elbow in the tackle, the Real captain tried to stop the action and pulled Salah to the ground. The problem was that the Egyptian landed badly on his left shoulder, and there was an even bigger problem when the falling Ramos came upon him and pressed on the sore shoulder.

Salah subsequently tried to pitch the injury, but the pain was such that he couldn’t continue. From the bench, he then had to watch his team lose the final 1-3, leaving only the silver medal to the Beatles.

For four years Salah has carried the guilt that Ramos deliberately took him out of the game, and that the result would have been very different had he been on the pitch.

He has since played again against Madrid. But he didn’t get his revenge, Real Madrid advanced to the Champions League quarterfinals last year after 3-1 and 0-0 results.

So the obsession and obsession with the White Ballet has grown even more in Salah’s body. The grudge he has carried for four years can finally be lifted from his body on Saturday. Can he do it, or will he once again be left with nothing but eyes to cry on?

Source: UEFA, Youtube, Twitter