Mo Salah: The Egyptian King's Story | Part One
It Was What It Was : The Football History Podcast
The Overlap
4.9 • 667 Ratings
🗓️ 19 August 2025
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome back to It Was What It Was, the football history podcast.
Today, co-hosts Rob Draper and Jonathan Wilson are joined by Ed Aarons from The Guardian to discuss the incredible journey of Mohamed Salah. With the PFA Footballer of the Year awards tonight, Salah's early life and career beginnings are explored in depth. Ed shares his research from travels to Salah's hometown in Egypt, providing unique insights into the challenges Salah faced, including the long commute for training and the support from his family. The episode covers Salah’s initial struggles, his move to Basel, and his eventual breakout that caught the attention of major clubs. Join us to learn how Salah's dedication and hard work paved the way for his renowned career.
00:00 Introduction and Today's Topic: Mohamed Salah
00:38 Guest Introduction: Ed Aarons
00:54 Journey to Egypt: Tracing Salah's Roots
01:54 Experiences in Salah's Hometown
03:22 Salah's Early Life and Football Beginnings
12:39 Challenges and Dedication in Salah's Youth
18:40 Salah's Transition to Professional Football
21:29 Cultural and Personal Insights on Salah
22:11 Salah's Early Professional Struggles
23:53 The Turning Point: Mastering the Art of Finishing
25:09 Early Career Struggles and Breakthroughs
26:33 International Recognition and Olympic Success
30:10 The Tragic Event That Changed Everything
31:31 The Move to Basel: Trials and Triumphs
39:00 Challenges at Chelsea and the Path to Greatness
44:26 Liverpool's Perfect Fit: Salah's Rise to Stardom
46:25 National Team Challenges and Rivalries
49:57 Legacy and Comparisons: The Greatest African Player?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So welcome to It Was What It Was What It Was with me, Rob Draper. I'm here with Jonathan Wilson. |
| 0:12.0 | And in today's episode, we're focusing on one of the Premier League great Mohammed Salah, a player we're kind of anticipating might win the PFA player of the year tonight as this episode goes out. |
| 0:26.3 | And to discuss Mo with us, we've got a fantastic guest because he's been all the way to Egypt and all around Egypt tracing the Mo Salah story. |
| 0:35.5 | We have Ed Ehrens from the Guardian newspaper. Ed is also the author |
| 0:39.8 | of Made in Africa. A fantastic book I'd thoroughly recommend you about several of African stars |
| 0:44.7 | who have come to the Premier League. Ed, welcome to the show. Hi guys. Pleasure to be here. |
| 0:51.2 | So Ed, I mean, Rob mentioned there that you've been to Egypt, you've been to Nagraig where |
| 0:55.6 | Mohammed Tala is from. So do you want to just give us an idea of where that is, how you get there, |
| 1:00.8 | what it's like, because it's quite away from Cairo, isn't it? |
| 1:06.0 | Yeah, I mean, as everybody knows, who knows the Mohammed Salah story, it's a nine, well, it was a nine-hour round trip for him to get to training every day. |
| 1:16.2 | Once he'd signed for a club based in Cairo. |
| 1:20.2 | And yeah, to get there, I mean, I went there with Nick Ames during the 2019 African Nations Cup, which was in Egypt. |
| 1:28.0 | And it was quite a, quite a bitful journey. |
| 1:32.1 | Just getting out of Cairo is quite a test. |
| 1:37.2 | Because I think some of the roads there are like nine lanes wide. |
| 1:41.9 | And we hired a car and went up to the Nile Delta and it's |
| 1:45.9 | actually beautiful part of the world, very green and lush obviously fertile place and yeah |
| 1:52.9 | it's not the biggest place in the world but yeah everybody there obviously has a story about |
| 2:00.1 | Mohammed Salar and their role in his success as a player. |
| 2:04.6 | And they're all very, very proud of him, obviously. |
| 2:07.6 | I know Rob really enjoys his moments when we sort of pull back the curtain. |
| 2:12.6 | So I was, that cup of nations, because I just had surgery in my shoulder, it was very unclear whether I was going to be able to go or not. |
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