Mo Salah starts for Egypt against Saudi Arabia this afternoon
After a mild panic and a lot of confusion, it turns out Mo Salah will start Egypt’s final group game this afternoon against Saudi Arabia, despite both teams having no chance of proceeding to the knockout stages of the World Cup.
Confusion arose when the Egyptian FA tweeted out the team sheet for today’s game without Salah, but then deleted the tweet and replaced Amr Warda with Mo Salah on the right wing.
Mo Salah, his Egypt future up in the air, not in the original lineup for today's clash with Saudi Arabia. Minutes later, he is included. Interesting. pic.twitter.com/RBOeUkwMXY
— Alex Richards (@AA_Richards) June 25, 2018
There was speculation over whether Salah would start the game amid rumours that he was going to quit international duty. It had been reported that the Liverpool star felt he was being used as a political pawn by the Egyptian government when it was arranged for Salah to be photographed with the leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.
The Egyptian FA have denied reports of any problems with Salah, insisting that he is happy.
Salah played in Egypt’s last game against Russia and scored a penalty although he didn’t look as sharp as he had done throughout the 2017/18 season.
