Naturally, the lasers lent the scene a certain pathos. As Mohamed Salah stepped up to take Egypt’s first penalty against Senegal on Tuesday night, the swarm of green laser beams dancing across his face were a reminder of football’s capacity to render even its greats temporarily powerless. Here was one of the biggest stars in the world’s biggest sport. But he couldn’t make his team win. He couldn’t get his country to a World Cup. And now he didn’t even have the use of his own eyes.
“I was luckier,” Sadio Mané said afterwards. This was his second consecutive triumph over his Liverpool teammate, Senegal’s two-leg World Cup playoff victory coming after the Africa Cup of Nations final in February. And yet for all the advance billing of the encounter as “Mané v Salah”, there was perhaps a wider lesson from the Senegal v Egypt trilogy, one with a particular and pressing relevance to the club they both play for.
