The question deserves to be asked for the one who ended up seventh of the 2021 Ballon d’Or ranking won by Lionel Messi this week. Mohamed Salah, the Egyptian striker of Liverpool, keeps on achieving great performances with the Reds, and England is starting to wonder whether he is not the best football player in the world right now. 

Always difficult to compare and decide who is the best, but the fact to be in the discussion is already an evidence of something. The Reds difficulty beat up Wolverhampton yesterday (0-1) with a goal from Belgian forward Divock Origi in the last minutes (94’), grabbing the second place of Premier League behind Manchester City before the games of today. 

Salah, current best goal scorer of the English league with 13 goals, is making it incredible by his statistics and the way he plays and scores as well, if you remember his great goals against City or Watford where defenders suffered agonies before his skills and body feints. Appreciated and respected by both teammates and adversaries, the Egyptian star, once player of Chelsea, is little by little building up a status of legend of the club along the Mersey, in a region where football is not just something you watch to kill time and spend some good moments between friends.

If the value of a football player is also measured up by the capacity he has to influence the results and performances of his country and selection, it can be quite complicated to consider the question for “big players of modest nations”, without lacking respect to anyone. Salah is perhaps not surrounded in the best way when playing for Egypt, and he will certainly never win a World Cup. Who cares? You cannot have everything, and the world cup remains the most difficult trophy to win in a football career. Ask Messi or Ronaldo!