Salah's success offers hope

CAIRO－An enchanting story being shared on social media in Egypt tells how Mohamed Salah, the Liverpool forward and one of the world's hottest soccer players right now, was once rejected by a local team he dreamt of playing for.

That Salah succeeded anyway is being latched onto by his fellow Egyptians as a sign of hope for a country battered by years of turmoil, deadly attacks and a harsh economic crisis.

Salah provides inspiration to many of Egypt's 95 million people that hard times can be overcome, yet his success has also been hailed by the country's authoritative government.

Rarely a day goes by without Salah on the front pages of Egyptian newspapers. Grim news reports often give way to more uplifting stories of how the 25-year-old Salah, who hails from an out-of-the-way Nile Delta village north of Cairo, has lit up the English Premier League in his first six months at Liverpool.

Just one of his milestones: Salah scored 20 goals in his first 26 games for the Reds. Only one player in Liverpool's 125-year history has reached 20 goals quicker than Salah－George Allan in 1895 (in 19 games).

One Egyptian newspaper, Al-Watan, devoted nine pages of its 16-page New Year's Day edition to Salah.

"The Pharaoh: Joy of 2017 and hope of 2018," declared Al-Watan's headline banner above an image of Salah wearing a red-and-black Egypt shirt, arms raised in triumph, and sporting just a hint of a smile. The picture nearly took up the entire front page.

Salah, the newly crowned African Player of the Year, hasn't sent Egyptians streaming to street cafes to watch him play just because of his phenomenal club form. He also led Egypt's national team to this year's World Cup finals in Russia, the first time in nearly 30 years.

At those packed street cafes, TV channels showing Lionel Messi's Barcelona and Cristiano Ronaldo's Real Madrid－for years the subjects of obsession for Egyptian fans－are now flicked over for Liverpool and Salah's latest showing.

Intriguingly, Salah's soccer success is prompting a deeper examination of what's happening in Egypt.

In 2011, Egyptians rose up during the Arab Spring to remove the unpopular Hosni Mubarak as president after 29 years in charge. But the country was then subject to instability and violence, first under direct military control and then under Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi. It's now ruled by army general-turned-president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

Right now, it's not just soccer fans hailing Salah's success.

"This is linked to the notion by tyrannical or authoritarian regimes of creating a distraction from the basic issues that people should be concerned with," said Amar Ali Hassan, an Egyptian novelist and social-science researcher.