Thursday March 28th, 2024
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Mohamed Salah Biographical Book Now Available to Egyptian Masses

Emad Anwar’s documentation of the young football pharaoh’s life from first steps to fame is sure to be a crowd pleaser.

Staff Writer

Today in Mo Salah-related news (our bread and butter at this point), a new book dedicated to the living legend's life and times recently hit Egyptian bookstore shelves. The Story of a Hero (or Hekayet Batal), is Emad Anwar’s love letter and retelling of the iconic footballer’s rise to universal acclaim, and seeing as Anwar is an established sports critic and writer, we doubt it’s off the mark.

The book starts out with Salah’s early years, struggling under Egyptian reality’s harsh circumstances just to do what he loves; play football. Having grown up in one of the more impoverished parts of Cairo, the book focuses on Salah’s achievements, trials, tribulations and all things in between to get to where he is now, but it always affirms one thing; he’s just a regular guy, doing his thing, just a man like anybody else.

“Why does football love the poor, and why do they represent the majority of its stars?” Reads the foreword of the biographical endeavour, “From Pele of Brazil and Maradona of Argentina -- the greatest players to touch the football in its history -- to Ronaldo and his nemesis Messi, and Egyptian star Salah, we have the stars known to everyone. The relation between them and football lies in the dirt and asphalt roads where they first practiced with their bare feet." Damn that’s some fine exposition. Anwar hopes to present Salah more as a role model or a standard for success to readers, perchance to achieve the same success as he has thus far (and hopefully forever). Look for it on local bookshelves. 

Main photo from Liverpool Echo.