Liverpool: Salah reveals the manager who has helped him the most in his career
"I had originally been playing for a club that was half an hour away from my village in Basyoun. Then I signed for a club in Tanta, which was one-and-a-half hours away. From there, I went to Arab Contractors in Cairo, so it was a four to four-and-a-half-hour journey five days a week to get to training.
I was having to leave school early to travel to training. I would go in from 7am until 9am and then I had an official paper to give to my club to say, ‘Mo can leave school early so he can reach the club at 2pm to train’. So I was only at school for two hours a day during that time. Now, everything would be difficult if I was not a footballer, I think!
I still remember everything from my youth very clearly, but it is difficult to say at what age I began to realise I could make a career in football. When I was maybe 16 or 17, everything became bigger for me. Now I was with the first team, so I was very close to becoming something. But before that, I was young and I just wanted to play football and enjoy it. I was scared not to become a footballer, but I did my best and hoped in the end everything would be fine. But at 16, everything became bigger when I made my first-team debut."
The former Roma and Fiorentina star did also praise Inter boss Luciano Spalletti who trained him back in his days at Roma. They both left the Italian capital last summer.
“Luciano Spalletti helped me a lot. A lot. He is very, very smart. Always after training, I would speak to him, ‘Boss, I want to improve that’ or, ‘I want to do this’ and he would never say no. Never. He would always say, ‘OK’ and even if he could see you were tired, he would always be telling you what he wants you to do, what he wants you to improve, ‘do this or do that, that’s better’. He helped me even as a person in improving my character. Defensively he helped me too, 100 per cent. He showed me the way to defend with the team and I saw myself improving in that aspect a lot.”