Despite Liverpool’s 2022 continuing to unfold in what could lead to an unprecedented manner, it is still true to say that the most important match that their two premier attackers have played in this year didn’t come in a Reds shirt.
Then by Tuesday, that will be threefold.
It was a little under seven weeks ago that Sadio Mane cracked home a penalty that all of Senegal had been waiting for, as a football mad country that have produced so many excellent players - both for their own national team and others - lifted the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time.
Amidst the post-shootout glee Mane was quick to thrust an arm around his devastated Liverpool colleague Mohamed Salah, who had just seen his dream of leading Egypt to glory slip away. At a time when there is so much focus on what he achieves in the game on a personal level, it was an enormous blow.
But revenge can come swiftly.
The Senegal celebrations will barely have stopped and Egypt’s wounds won’t have fully healed, yet here the pair are again set to go toe-to-toe in a two-legged playoff to reach the World Cup in Qatar later this year.
It could be more than *just* the World Cup that is on the line though.
Because while only one of Salah or Mane will be taking their place on the global stage in November, the very real prospect that neither will be at Liverpool beyond the end of next season continues.
The contract impasse around both has reached a stage when the inaction begins to look like a choice, with Salah’s new deal - or lack of one - having now become a daily discussion point.
There is much less talk around Mane’s future, something which leads you to believe that his people are perhaps waiting to see what happens with the Egyptian before making any definitive moves.
After all, if Salah were to stay on new, enormous wages then Mane could rightly ask for a deal at around 80-90 per cent of that, but if Salah were to leave than Mane could be the new top earner at the club.
All of that is speculation, but at least one thing will become clear after Tuesday: one of the pair will be facing a hectic 2022-23.
Because if, as is still expected, both Salah and Mane will be at Liverpool next season, then one of the by then 30-year-olds will have to contend with the stresses and strains of a usual Reds campaign (or an unusual one such as we’re currently seeing), a World Cup jammed into the middle of the season and then another Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast in the summer of 2023.
Both players would doubtless welcome the challenge, but with Liverpool monitoring their workloads closely and Jurgen Klopp acutely aware of the demands on players these days, these possibilities are sure to have entered contract discussions.
You can see elements of them at play now.
His standards are so high, but Salah has had a drop-off in form since his return from AFCON earlier this year, when he played for 120 minutes in all four knockout games including the final.
Mane’s time out in Cameroon was almost just as intense, and included the huge emotional release after winning the trophy.
Since his return he has largely been used in a central striking area, largely for tactical reasons but also perhaps to limit his workload.
With the all-action Luis Diaz now in the picture, Diogo Jota so lethal and Roberto Firmino still able to produce, Salah and Mane haven’t quite needed to deliver so consistently for Klopp and Liverpool, but you can be sure they’ll have to before the end of the season, even though the manager will have reservations over their workload.
Mane once famously said that “tiredness is in the head” shortly after returning from the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations and heading straight into Liverpool’s league winning campaign, but his own drop-off in 2020-21 has since proven he might have been a little hasty.
For while whichever one of he or Salah who misses out on the World Cup will obviously be devastated, the prospect of a full summer’s rest and then a month off in the middle of next season might conversely make Liverpool be more willing to part with extra cash in terms of a contract offer, or maybe even adding another year on top as burnout fears ease.
For Salah especially that might just prove to be too tempting an offer to turn down, especially with the world stage removed, if he were the one to lose, and the certainty over his position as the main man at Liverpool.
Absent from Qatar, he’ll want to have everything in place to prove that he is the world’s best as he enters his early 30s, and he’s clearly got all that in front of him at Anfield.
Mane may just have to put up with Salah’s star billing if he wants to stay too, but at least he’ll have the solace of the international upper hand.
He heads into this week’s playoff looking to deal another wound to his teammate, and whatever happens will have repercussions far beyond Qatar.
