Mohamed Salah has shared his views about being ranked seventh in last November’s Ballon d’or rankings. It’s safe to say the Liverpool icon was not happy with the decision.
Speaking to DMC in Egypt via 90min, Salah said that he couldn’t believe that he’d been ranked so low.
“The results of the Ballon d’Or were shocking to me,” said Salah.
“I don’t have much to say about it, but there was nobody who expected me to finish seventh last year, but that is what happened.”
It’s a fair shout from Mo. He put Liverpool on his back in the early part of last year as injuries ruined any hope of silverware for The Reds.
He then came out of the traps flying this season and by the time the awards show rolled around, he was comfortably the best player in the world.
Consistently underrated outside of Liverpool
It’s a little bit of a surprise to see Salah speak so openly about the decision to snub him for personal awards.
The Egyptian is sometimes unfairly branded as a selfish player. But the number of goals he lays on for his teammates flies in the face of that.
However, he is clearly incredibly motivated to be the best that he can be. Individual awards are so subjective in football, and some of the decisions made in them means they have lost some credibility in recent years.
But they obviously matter to Mo. Giving his thoughts on the reasons why he was overlooked, Salah stopped short of saying there is a ‘conspiracy’ against him. But he did question the voting methods of some countries.
“I don’t think there’s a conspiracy theory or anything, but there may be inaccurate choices and there are many countries who don’t know how to vote,” said the 29-year-old.
“I don’t know what they base their choices on, but I’m not saying there’s a conspiracy or anything.”
More disappointment for Mo
Salah also bemoaned being left out of the FIFA Men’s World XI in January.
“I’m not happy that I was left out of the World XI, but there’s nothing I can do,” said the Egyptian.
“What satisfies me is that everyone shares my feelings, that I should be in the team. I don’t think there’s anything personal against me specifically, but that’s the reality that I’m dealing with.”
Those who matter certainly know that Salah deserved to be in that particular team. The Liverpool fans were just as shocked that their star man was overlooked.
Fellow pros like Thomas Muller have also stated their belief that the forward should have been included in the team.
Whether the snub has spurred Salah on or not is hard to say for sure. But he’s been in terrific form all season.
After scoring his 150th goal for Liverpool last month, Jurgen Klopp called him ‘absolutely insane’ via liverpoolfc.com.
The Reds could be on course for a historic year and with Salah at the heart of that, he surely won’t miss out next time.
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