4 min readJul 7, 2026 08:22 PM IST
First published on: Jul 7, 2026 at 06:15 AM IST
A large period of Mohamed Salah’s life has been spent in Lionel Messi’s shadow. The Egyptian was a young prodigy and started to play senior football at a time when the Argentine was at the peak of his powers. The comparisons that followed were plentiful, and just like every country’s left-footed right winger was cast a footballing death by way of a Messi side-by-side contrasting profile, Salah was also made to suffer.
Many remember the ‘Egyptian Messi’ for his nine successful years at Liverpool. Most forget the journeyman he was before reaching Merseyside: There was FC Basel, Chelsea, Fiorentina and AS Roma – five years and four clubs, painful rejections across Europe before the love story with Liverpool developed.
Now, both ‘Mo’ and Messi meet in the World Cup Round of 16 – the first time Egypt will face Argentina at the event. And while Argentina retain their status as favourites – Salah will never get a better chance to knock off the king.
It’s fair to say that the tiny island nation of Cape Verde bit a sizable chunk out of Argentina before bowing out of the World Cup. The Argentines ran 140 kilometres in the stifling humidity of Miami, and were hanging by the thinnest of threads as Cape Verde refused to break. Facundo Medina fell first to cramps, followed by Enzo Fernandes and then an ankle injury to Nicolas Gonzalez left the world champions teetering.
Messi ran over 10 kilometres, his first time breaching that mark at this World Cup. Head coach Lionel Scaloni’s press fell apart as the players succumbed to the physicality of the moment. Argentina, purring smoothly until then, suddenly found multiple warning signs blinking all over the place. In Scaloni’s words: ‘It was a matter of defending like a cornered cat’.
One of the first thoughts the coach had after the match was the short recovery time his team would get before the clash against the Egyptians. Their success in Qatar came on the back of young legs that were willing to run till the wheels came off. In Miami, Argentina’s conditioning raised eyebrows.
One-man show
What will seriously worry Scaloni, though, is the lack of goals from players not named Messi. Seven goals out of the 11 that Argentina have scored have come from that expected source of genius, but the others are where the cracks start to appear. One strike from Giovanni lo Celso, a left-footed goal rifled in by Lisandro Martinez, a penalty converted by Lautaro Martinez and an own goal by Diney aside, the other Argentines have not taken their chances.
The failures of Lautaro and Julian Alvarez, in particular, are holding Argentina back. Alvarez, who notched a single-season record with Atletico Madrid scoring 29 goals, has looked a jaded version of himself. During Argentina’s qualification for the World Cup, he had four goals and three assists, but in 200 minutes of World Cup football, the striker hasn’t produced a goal, a goal involvement or an assist. Lautaro’s returns in front of goal have seen a similar hit.
Amid this crisis in Argentina, Salah has the opportunity to cause another gargantuan upset at this World Cup. Egypt score almost at the same clip they concede – nine goals given away in their last six World Cup, and eight scored. Testing Argentina’s fading physicality is where the can of worms could open. Salah today is a successful, elite attacker of his own making, scoring panenkas at a World Cup and beaming with the Pharaohs as they chart yet another successful African tale on football’s great stage. He has long moved away from the lazy comparisons with Messi that lifted his standing in football and then brought it crashing down. But a crack at the big man when Argentina is wobbling might never come again.
Salah and Messi meet in the World Cup Round of 16 – the first time Egypt will face Argentina at the event. (AP Photo) 
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