Amr Obaid (Cairo)
The final of the African Nations Cup is witnessing a “double duel” between two big stars in the English Premier League for the second time in a row, and Sadio Mane remained the “common factor”, as he lost the cup to Riyad Mahrez in 2019, while this time he faces his “colleague” Mohamed Salah in the 2021 edition, and Zamalek Salah and Mane have been in the ranks of Liverpool 1681 days and shared 27 goals together, as the Egyptian star made 15 “assists” for his Senegalese companion, who gave him 12 assists, but today he must lose one of them in order for the other to win!
Senegal and Egypt bring them together in the current African Nations Cup final, as will happen next March, in order to seize the qualifying card for the 2022 World Cup, which will renew the “fencing” between the two “Reds” stars who are looking for the “first title” after losing one final for each of them, and outperforms them. Mane Ali Salah in the African Championship, where the “lions” star participated in 5 goals by scoring 3 and making 2, while the leader of the “Pharaohs” gave his team 3 goals, after scoring twice by himself along with one decisive pass, and Mane scored 6 “international” goals against 2 for Salah this season, while the situation is different in the European championships, in which the “Egyptian King” has an advantage after he scored 23 goals compared to 10 for the “Bambali Lion” in 26 matches for both of them with Liverpool.
During the two teams’ journey to the continental final, the influence of the two stars was clear, with the relative superiority of Senegal’s top scorer, who scored in 3 matches out of a total of 4, during which the “lions” managed to reach the opponents’ net, and even scored a goal in the fourth match, while the team missed the goal twice. The Egyptian team scored goals in only 3 matches out of a total of 6, and Salah appeared by scoring and industry in two of them, especially against Morocco, where he settled the confrontation with a goal and “assisted” and scored the last penalty kick, in the Côte d’Ivoire match in the round of 16.
It is known that Salah joined his companion in the ranks of the “Reds”, one year after the transfer of Mane, who left Southampton in the summer of 2016 for 41.2 million euros, while Liverpool paid 42 million in the “summer Mercato” in 2017, to obtain Salah’s services from Rome. And the funny thing is that the two contracts expire together in the “summer of 2023”, after the marketing value of the “Pharaoh” amounted to 100 million euros, compared to 80 million for the “brown lion” and they succeeded in winning 4 “big” titles with Liverpool, but each of them wishes Same today with a “expensive” championship with his country.