Mohamed Salah has undeniably suffered a damaging week in his bid for the Ballon d’Or. But the Liverpool star still has a route to the trophy he covets.
First, the bad news: Salah can only end the season with a maximum of one team trophy now. The exit from the Champions League was particularly damaging, with winners of the award typically going far in Europe’s elite competition.
The Carabao Cup was never likely to move the dial much on its own, but the very fact of doing the double would have spruced up Salah’s bid for the Ballon d’Or. Instead, he will have to make his case entirely off the back of extraordinary Premier League excellence and hope that the world is paying sufficient attention.
The signs are not altogether promising. Salah broke the existing Premier League goals record in his remarkable debut season at Liverpool, a campaign which also saw the Reds reach the Champions League final, and yet he had to settle for sixth in the vote.
Fortunately, however, Salah is on track to outperform even that Premier League season. The bar now is to do something so remarkable on the domestic front, it makes up for a lack of progress elsewhere.
Of course, this does encapsulate the capricious whims of the Ballon d’Or, which is never going to be a particularly scientific measure — Liverpool lost on penalties to one of the best teams in Europe, which it drew after topping the league phase, and yet it leaves Salah needing to perform miracles in order to win it. But if anyone is capable of those miracles, it is him.
On the whole, he is probably helped by a lack of international tournaments this summer. AFCON might have given him a shot at increasing his standing (not to stir up that debate again), but World Cup years tend to involve Egypt being on the end of ritual humiliation in the group stages.
And with everything boiling down to club form, Salah is surely destined to at least be in the conversation despite the week he has just had. In a year where it feels as though very few have been outstanding in terms of sheer output, he has set the standards of excellence.
Raphinha and Kylian Mbappe are currently the two names ahead of Salah in the Ballon d’Or betting odds. Yet their numbers in La Liga are paltry compared to what the Liverpool star has managed in the Premier League.
(Image: Naomi Baker/Getty Images)
In Mbappe’s case, a 20-goal haul is a nice headline figure, but he has backed it up with just three assists. Raphinha has 13 goals and 10 assists, so both of them are on 23-goal contributions.
Salah has 44 goal contributions in the Premier League, tying the 38-game season record for goal contributions in a single campaign — and there are still nine games left. If he keeps going at the same pace, he will blow a whole host of records out of the water.
And carrying on at the same pace might well be the deciding factor. Not only does Salah need to end the season on truly extraordinary numbers, he could do with finishing it in fine form because the Ballon d’Or voters have a tendency to show short memories.
What might a strong run between now and the end of the campaign look like? In a best-case scenario, it could see Salah do the unthinkable, breaking the individual goal and assist records in the same season.
This is the sort of mind-bending individual achievement for which the Ballon d’Or was invented. To do it, Salah must score 10 goals in his last nine matches, registering at least four more assists.
It is far from impossible. Combining that with a Premier League trophy would be hard to ignore, especially when Salah’s numbers are so far ahead of his rivals.
And ultimately, the fate of those rivals might be the biggest factor of all, though it is beyond Salah’s control. Should Barcelona and Real Madrid also suffer Champions League disappointment, the field blows wide open once again.
If Mbappe scores the winner in a Champions League final, you can forget about anything else that has happened this season, and hand him the award — that’s just the way it goes. But Salah should not give up the dream just yet, with nine games left to at the very least force a really tough decision.
