Legendary AC Milan manager Arrigo Sacchi has named Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah as the one player he wishes he could coach.
Sacchi picked the Liverpool star when asked by Gazzetta dello Sport which player from today’s game he’d like to manage.
“I’d go for a player who knows the work ethic, without excesses of protagonism and functional to my ideas,” said the 76-year-old via Football Italia.
“I’ve always looked at the head before the feet. Feet can be fixed with training, but not the head. I like Liverpool strikers for the way they play. They run, work for the team and attack the spaces. I’d pick Salah, who may not be an absolute star, but is perfect for how I see strikers.”
Sacchi won two European Cups with Milan and is widely considered one of the most influential coaches of all-time. Not a bad endorsement for Mo. I mean, he’s no Jurgen Klopp, but it’ll do!
Long live the Egyptian King
As Sacchi alludes to, Salah is a coaches dream. He’s rarely injured, always available and is the absolute model professional.
On top of that, he performs to an incredible level for the majority of the time. When you break down the things you’d look for in a top footballer, Salah has all of those attributes.
There may be slightly more gifted footballers from a technical perspective, but Mo more than bridges any gaps thanks to his insatiable mentality.
Having now signed a new contract at Liverpool, we can hopefully look forward to him taking it to another level. Although his professionalism was never in question, the contract standoff must have weighed on him last season.
You could see in Salah’s displays after missing out on the AFCON title with Egypt that he was playing without freedom.
Subconsciously or not, that should hopefully have been lifted now. If the 30-year-old can return to the form that he showed in the first part of last season, Liverpool will have a better chance of achieving their lofty goals. Help them do that, and he could perhaps even be considered on of The Reds’ best ever players.
There are still rival fans who fail to acknowledge just how good Salah is. At this point, when you’ve got icons like Sacchi praising him above all others, those people simply can’t be helped anymore.
Long live the Egyptian King!
Receive a digest of our best Liverpool content each week direct to your mailbox
