Liverpool signed Mohamed Salah from Roma in the summer of 2017 and quickly got far more than they expected. In his debut season, he scored 44 goals in all competitions, added 16 assists and was voted the Professional Footballers’ Association’s player of the year, a return that turned hope into something closer to dependence.
That arc also carried Liverpool through some of its sharpest highs and hardest blows. Salah left the 2018 Champions League final in the 30th minute with a shoulder injury after a challenge from Sergio Ramos, and Real Madrid went on to beat Liverpool 3-1 in the final. For a player who had arrived with big expectations, that night became one of the clearest examples of how much his presence meant.
By the 2018-19 season, Liverpool and Manchester City were locked in a title race that left no room for ordinary endings. The rivals played nine final matches that season, and the pressure showed in the way Liverpool had to keep finding late goals against Fulham, Southampton and Newcastle just to stay in touch. Klopp described the mindset simply: his team had to throw everything they had at getting a winner, whatever the risk of conceding.
That approach was on display again on 31 March, when Liverpool met Tottenham in a game still level at 1-1 in the 90th minute after Lucas Moura had equalized. Trent Alexander-Arnold’s second ball from a corner reached the danger area, Salah headed it back across goal and Toby Alderweireld turned it into his own net. It was not the cleanest ending, but it was exactly the kind of ending Liverpool kept producing that season.
The 2019 Champions League final in Madrid came after that relentless run, and by then Salah had already become the kind of player around whom Liverpool’s biggest nights were built. He could decide games with speed, with finishing and, as the Tottenham winner showed, with the instinct to keep a move alive when the clock had almost run out.
Six memorable moments have come to define that Liverpool story, but the thread running through them is simpler: the club signed Salah for goals, and he gave them far more than that. He gave them a forward who could change the shape of a season, absorb a setback and still be at the center of the next decisive moment.
