Category: SOS

Liverpool and Egypt striker Mohamed Salah has an affinity to home that one cannot explain. Home, according to the scoring machine is Nagrig, Egypt. Though, Salah has traveled across Europe, he says home will forever be in his mind.   Transfers, when they happen, mean uprooting your family every few seasons for another home, another culture. But even by football’s demanding standards, Mohamed Salah has travelled a long way. Growing up in Nagrig, Egypt, Liverpool’s star forward famously took the bus for nine hours a day to get to training.

And although Salah is now universally acknowledged as one of the greatest players in the world, it took many years – and several different clubs – to get here. “I’ve played in four different countries and always try to adapt to the culture,” Salah says. “I was in Egypt, then I went to Switzerland. It’s a completely different culture. I couldn’t speak English there; I had to learn English. The culture is different. The way we train in Egypt is different.”

A hero’s journey

Salah’s journey is the starting point for a new series of videos, produced by GQ Sports and Gucci, that we’re calling A Hero’s Journey – an exploration of the life of modern sporting icons. In each episode, these global stars share their personal experiences of the tension between their private and public lives and the lengths they’ve gone to succeed.

For some, the challenges have been mental, others physical, or spiritual. The journey is never easy.

Some players might shrink in such challenging conditions. Not Salah. Everywhere he has been, he has learned to adapt – whether it be his way of playing or his way of life.

“When I was in Italy, I tried to learn Italian to know the people more and to understand the culture more,” he says. “Here in England as well. Every day I’m learning something.”

That attitude – a kind of joyous relentlessness – has helped Salah shine on the pitch and off. With Liverpool, he has won every club competition going (the Premier League; Champions League; and FA, League, and Club World Cups).

Premier League

Last season, he topped the Premier League for both goals and assists, a feat reserved for only history’s greatest players. And for his country, Salah is both captain and talisman, most recently leading Egypt to the African Cup of Nations final.

You’d think that might be enough. But not for a man whose competitive drive is legendary – going to extreme lengths to hone his mind and body, on and off the pitch. “I’m always trying to learn more, always know what I can improve,” he says. “And I’m very, very open with myself to know what I want to improve.”

Read Also: Salah out to break Drogba, Aguero  UCL records

Success

One of the things that Salah has learned, on his travels, is that success is only truly success if you’re enjoying it. So these days he’s focused on the things that make him happy, like his young family. “I just try to be happy all the time and always trying to shift my awareness in my mind, so that you can be happy and grateful for everything you have,” he says. “I just feel blessed to be where I am and just try to enjoy it.”

There’s something else Salah knows: that even though he might now be thousands of miles from where he started in Nagrig, the journey will always be with him.

“I just feel like I still have something inside me from there,” he says. “It’s something from the village that cannot change. I don’t know what it is. It’s just something that makes me connected to the country or the people there.” No matter how many miles you travel, you never forget home.

Meanwhile, Mohamed Salah’s advisor has never been one afraid of causing a stir on social media.

Colombian Ramy Abbas Issa, who has acted as Salah’s ‘lawyer and advisor’ since the Liverpool star was at Chelsea, was a major player in the contract talks that had rumbled on between the Egyptian and the Reds.

Those talks ended up being fruitful and Salah inked a new Liverpool contract in the summer that would take his Anfield deal to the end of the 2024/25 season, a deal that made him the highest paid player in Liverpool history after his remarkable form in a red shirt helped propel the club to a Premier League and Champions League crown in recent years.

Abbas Issa had fuelled the discourse on social media with a host of cryptic tweets during the contract negotiations, even attempting to trick fans just prior to the announcement of Salah’s new contract, signed on the island of Mykonos, that all may not be well. It was, of course, all fine and Liverpool managed to keep hold of their man and Salah and his advisor became wealthier men in the process.

Recently, Abbas Issa took to social media to post a picture of himself and Maverick Carter, the friend and business partner of basketball icon and Fenway Sports Group partner LeBron James, at what appeared to be a business meeting. Carter, like James, is a partner in FSG following James accreting his two per cent ownership stake in Liverpool into one per cent of FSG’s whole empire.

Carter and James co-own the media and production company SpringHill Entertainment, a firm that the duo founded in 2020 and that specialises in film and television production as well as digital storytelling, branding itself as a ‘culture company’.

Among the board of directors sit the likes of Serena Williams, while in 2021 both FSG and the 11 per cent stakeholders in FSG, RedBird Capital Partners, along with Liverpool kit manufacturer and sports giant Nike, acquired a slice of the firm at a valuation of around $725m.

SpringHill deal in content creation and digital storytelling, with the link up with FSG having a potential impact on some future work with Liverpool around how the club tells its story to a global audience to continue to drive engagement and growth of the fan base, something that was suggested at the outset of the FSG investment into SpringHill in October 2021.

Salah is, arguably, Liverpool’s most marketable star given his prominence globally and his position as African football’s biggest star. He is also the most prominent Muslim footballer on the planet.

Telling Salah’s story in different ways has been something understood to be bubbling away in the background for some time, his enormous profile offering obvious potential for a project with someone like SpringHill, something that has not been confirmed.

For Liverpool growing their fan base globally by reaching new audiences in different ways is key to their future plans for revenue growth.

Culled from www.gq-magazine.co.uk

Talk about performing under pressure and making an impression at Qatar 2022, Gonçalo Ramos certainly rose to the occasion for Portugal. Playing instead of Portugal’s all-time leading scorer, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ramos scored an emphatic hat-trick, almost singlehandedly sealing his team’s place in the 2022 World Cup quarterfinals with a 6-1 win over Switzerland at the Lusail Iconic Stadium on Tuesday.

Not only was it his first start at Qatar 2022, the tournament’s first hat-trick, but Ramos’ three goals in this last-16 tie puts Ronaldo record in one-off World Cup games somewhat in the shade. Ronaldo has never scored in a World Cup knockout match, despite competing in five tournaments.

So, who is this 21-year-old striker nicknamed “Pistoleiro” by fans?

Ramos is a product of the famous Benfica academy. Known as the Benfica Campus the academy helped launch the careers of some of Ramos’ Portugal teammates, including João Félix and Rúben Dias.

At the academy, around 95 players live there at any one time, and when they transition from the Under-18s to the Under-19s, players move out into their own houses or apartments in Lisbon.

“In our opinion, it was the age that they start to have their own lives,” Rodrigo Magalhães, technical coordinator for the Campus, told CNN earlier this year.

“Some of them have girlfriends, some of them live two or three in an apartment. So they start a life outside the academy as we need to prepare them to live their lives because we know that a small percentage of players will achieve the goal to play in the first team or in the main leagues in Europe.

“After those ages, Under-19 and Under-23, normally all of our players who progress [from the academy] can play in first divisions and second divisions here in Portugal or in other countries, but we need to prepare them if football fails.

Read Also: Amuneke predicts tough Portugal, Morocco clash

“The first objective was to develop them like human beings and we need to prepare them with a strong academic development too.”

Ramos joined the Benfica Campus in 2013, enjoying a stellar youth team career for the club and his national team.

He won the national title at the Under-15 and Under-17 age levels, while also finishing as the top scorer in the Under-19 Euros as Portugal finished runner-up to Spain.

In a display of what was to come from Ramos, he eventually made his first-team debut for Benfica in July 2020, marking the occasion with two goals.

Despite the early promise, it hasn’t been until this season that people have routinely become accustomed to seeing the name Gonçalo Ramos on the scoresheet for Benfica.

Following Darwin Núñez’s transfer to Liverpool from the Portuguese club in the summer, Ramos has scored 14 goals in 21 matches so far this season in an impressive first half to the campaign for the Lisbon club.

Benfica tops the Portuguese league table and is safely into the round of 16 stage of the Champions League having topped a group which included Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus. Benfica will play Club Brugge in the round of 16.

Ramos’ work ethic is something which has also endeared him to teammates and fans.

Culled from edition.cnn.com

Ademola Lookman has been one of Atalanta key players so far this season after disappointing spells with Everton and Fulham. The 24-year-old moved to the Gewiss Stadium from Leicester City in a €9m deal in the summer and has already left his mark with six goals and three assists in 13 games in total this season. His goal against Fiorentina, helped La Dea take all three points and join Napoli at the top of the Serie A table.

After finishing last season outside Europe, Gian Piero Gasperini’s side have begun 2022-23 on a high note and have only lost a game to top of the table Napoli.

They may not be as spectacular as in the past, but they have won eight matches, drawn thr33 and lost two. They have scored 19 goals and conceded 10 goals with Lookman having the highest of six.

Mola, as the Nigerian striker is fondly called by fans, is giving a crucial contribution up front despite not being a regular starter yet. The Nigeria international has played three games from the start but has featured in every Serie A match so far.

Lookman was born in London in 1997 and is a product of Charlton Academy. He played for England’s youth teams including 11 matches with the U21 squad, but eventually picked the senior Nigeria squad, making his debut this year before his move to Italy. So far, he has made five appearances and scores once for the Super Eagles.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve known about the club’s interest and obviously, I am here and ready to get to work,” Lookman said in August, in his first interview as an Atalanta player.

“For me, the platform here is amazing, it’s a massive club in Italy, they play attacking football so for me it was an easy decision to make.”

His pace and versatility have proved to be key for La Dea as Gasperini has used the product of Charlton Academy as a centre forward, support striker or right winger.

Lookman also played for Everton, Leicester City and Fulham in England, but struggled to impose himself in the Premier League. He managed four goals in 48 appearances with the Toffees, eight in 42 matches with the Foxes and four in 35 with the Cottagers.

He didn’t play any of the two Europa League games between Everton and Atalanta in 2017-18, but La Dea was somehow in his destiny.

The 24-year-old spent a year and a half on loan at Leipzig, first in 2018, from January to June, and then in 2019-20.

He scored six Premier League goals in 26 appearances with the Foxes last season, but the early signs in his first months with Atalanta are even more exciting.

HIS GOALS

Lookman admits he’s relishing his experience with Atalanta and Serie A after finding the net against Sassuolo last month. The goal was crucial taking them to the top of the league temporarily.

It was Sassuolo who had taken the surprise lead in Bergamo with a ferocious Giorgos Kyriakopoulos volley, the first time La Dea had been in a trailing situation this season.

However, they gave a strong response, turning it around with Mario Pasalic and Lookman, both on Brandon Soppy assists either side of half-time. “It was another tough match against another tough opponent, we’re glad to get the three points. The boys dug in deep and it was a resilient performance,” Lookman told Sky Sport Italia.

Read Also: Serie A: Osimhen, Lookman  listed for player of the month

Atalanta were temporarily top of the table on 24 points after the game, their best ever start of the league, but they came short against Scudetto contenders, Napoli, suffering a 2-1 defeat, with Lookman, countrymate, Victor Osimhen, proving to be the tormentor-in-chief.

He said of the memorable match, where he scored from the spot first before Napoli rallied back to net two.

“Obviously that’s a top match. Like I said before, we take it game by game, we’ve been doing that and getting results. We were top of the table temporarily. We’ll see how it goes.”

This has been Lookman’s best ever start to a season, a real revelation since his €9m transfer from RB Leipzig, although he was on loan at Leicester City last term.

“I am very happy to be here, I feel very settled in the squad and the city. I am enjoying my football. Long may it continue!”

Mola was rewarded for his loyalty with the Player of The Month for October award.

According to the club’s website, it did not come as a surprise to the fans and management.

“Your votes have crowned Ademola Lookman as Player of The Month for October! The outcome of the voting has never been in question: in the last weeks, Mola bluntly annihilated the competition, as the Nigerian winger was at his best, scoring 4 goals in his last 5 games. His goals were undoubtedly a key asset in tightening Atalanta’s grip on the top of the league table: who else but him to be crowned ItalianOptic POTM then!

“Mola was off to an astonishing start: his match-winner against Fiorentina, the match-opener in Udine, another goal to make it three points against Sassuolo and the one to seal the win over Empoli. The key role of these goals was the factor that tipped the scales in Lookman’s favour for the pick of this POTM voting, it goes without saying.”

Lookman however, believes the award is for the team. He was full of praises for teammate upfront Luis Muriel, who is behind half of his goals thanks to his assists.

Muriel clinched a well-deserved second place. The Colombian striker was back to his scoring ways last month while also serving Lookman two assists.

Sitting in third place was Marco Sportiello, the Atalanta keeper who seized the opportunity after Musso’s injury and has been impressive.

UNFORGETTABLE GOAL

In all the matches that ‘Mola’ has played so far, the Matchday 12 of the 2022-2023 Serie A, between Atalanta and Empoli and against Monza would remain evergreen.

Atalanta beat Empoli 2-0 at the Stadio Castellani in Empoli with goals from Hateboer and Lookman.

After a Destro cheeky lob landed on the roof of the net and a Lookman finish charged down by Vicario, Gasperini’s men almost took the lead in the 16th minute through Éderson, whose sudden finishes were charged down by the Empoli goalkeeper. The deadlock was broken in the 32nd minute by Hateboer, who collected Lookman’s scuffed effort and found the right gap to beat Vicario. Atalanta had a huge chance to double their lead on 42 minutes when they were awarded a penalty for Destro’s handball but Vicario managed to parry Koopmeiners’ penalty with his leg.

The second half started with a chance each, coming off Højlund and Marin respectively. Lookman doubled Atalanta’s lead in the 59th minute with a splendid solo move, who dribbled past a few defenders and drilled into the near bottom corner. Empoli threatened in the 70th minute with Destro, as his effort skimmed the crossbar. Lookman came close to bagging a brace in the 75th minute but was denied by Vicario. Musso had to make a huge save on Walukiewicz’s finish on 84 minutes (Ebouhei tapped in on the follow-up but was offside).

In the match against Monza, he provided the assist for Højlund, who scored the opener at Monza, and doubled Atalanta’s lead, although the Lega Serie A decided the team’s second goal was a Marlon own goal. It was certainly an important evening for Lookman.

“We created a lot more chances in the second half, we played a lot better and we won the game. I’m enjoying it here. Italian football is tough but I’m adapting every single day and I’m working hard to be better.

“That’s the most important thing. we’re winning games and we’re there about. I think it’s a testament to our work on the pitch and training every single game, wanting to be better and striving to be better. That’s the most important,” Lookman added.

The loss of Paul Pogba and N’Golo Kanté through injury means the midfield that triumphed at Russia 2018 will have completely changed. Real Madrid’s Aurélien Tchouaméni will play a holding role, with Adrien Rabiot partnering one of Mattéo Guendouzi or Youssouf Fofana. Fofana and Guendouzi are the progressive options but Rabiot will have the edge given his experience, even as Deschamps averred his confidence in youth after France’s win over Austria. “From the moment I choose players, it means that I trust them,” he said. “If they’re selected, they have everything necessary to play at the top level.”

Elsewhere, Hugo Lloris is 35, but still a top professional, and should become France’s record appearance holder, provided they reach the last 16. In defence, Presnel Kimpembe is much-maligned for his errors, but he or Benoît Badiashile will have to step in if Bayern Munich’s Lucas Hernandez fails to recover from injury.

Read Also: France probe Pogba extortion claims

France have two of the world’s best attackers in Kylian Mbappé and Karim Benzema but it’s not yet clear if Deschamps knows how to get the best out of the pair – in a tournament that is historically short on goals, especially in the group stages, getting that combination right could well prove to be the difference.

Wary of the clashing egos and scandals that have engulfed previous tournaments, Didier Deschamps has always placed squad harmony ahead of picking the best players. Despite his pragmatic playing style and being labelled unsophisticated by the French media, that strategy has worked. France are reigning World Cup and Nations League champions and Deschamps deserves better than the begrudging praise he has received from a haughty press pack.