In this exclusive book extract, Melissa Reddy documents the Egyptian King’s sacrifice and dedication to make his vision a reality
The entrance to Al Mokawloon Al Arab’s youth sector feels imposing. At first it is confusing to pinpoint the reason. Is it the facade; a mesh of thick concrete slabs, a marble-like trim that alters in colour depending on the light, and the no-nonsense black steel gate? Perhaps it is the stately signage of white block letters in Arabic juxtaposed against the dark background, with satellite pieces of information and announcements signifying importance. But to stop and pay attention to buildings around Nasr City in eastern Cairo is to notice that the blend of functional and decorative elements of the entrance, down to even the font and array of notices, is not unique.
The building’s aura can be explained by the main image above its gates, and the knowledge that to walk through them is to follow the footsteps a history-maker took from the age of 14. Mohamed Salah’s face has pride of place above the gates; it is a reminder of where he’s been, but more pertinently, of why it is important to marry talent with discipline and determination. The truth is he has achieved the impossible.
Hamdi Nouh, Salah’s first coach at Al Mokawloon and who he has referred to as a “second father”, knows that is because “he was ready to sacrifice everything, he wanted to work hard, and liked to learn”. It sounds simple, until you start drilling at the heart of what it means for a boy from Nagrig to endure a nine-hour round trip five days a week simply to train in Cairo. Salah’s route has become so well known, you can read the tale of the minimum four buses he needed to take each way in Chinese, Spanish and every other major language. One from the T-junction at the edge of his village to reach Basyoun. The transfer from there to the capital of the Gharbia Governorate, Tanta. The great slog of around 100 kilometres to reach the rush of Ramses Square. A connection from Cairo’s chaotic central transport hub to Nasr City. And, on the luckier days, a ride close to the club’s gates to spare Salah having to run almost two kilometres up a steep hill, to be on time for his training session. After four hours at the centre, he would leave to do that all again in reverse.
The problem with summarising the journey in this way, as it has been done since 2017 when Salah started shifting the parameters for greatness in the Premier League, is that it omits the reality of what this daily grind truly entailed. When Nouh underlines sacrifice, part of it was Salah giving up his youth to sit shoulder slammed into shoulder, bodies filling up every available inch of the microbus and often even hanging off it, racing to the next stop and against the anxiety of missing a connection in a schedule that had no rhyme nor reason, with only enough cash for the exact journey. He was too respectful to ask his father for more, even though there was no margin for error. Salah weirdly enjoyed rather than endured the stressful odyssey. “I didn’t feel tired travelling when I was young,” he would reflect in 2022. “It’s because I was doing something I wanted, chasing a dream I had to reach. I wasn’t seeing my situation, I was seeing my goal. These are days I sit and think about, I’ll never forget them and I still smile now when I remember everything.”
It is not the same for Umm Mohamed (the Mother of Mohamed), who was averse to her eldest son spending only two hours at school, between seven and nine in the morning, and venturing so far away from his village, when lanes were seen as a mere suggestion and dangerous driving was the only type. Her memories were of worry and fear prompted by the high number of crashes involving microbuses. One major accident along her son’s route provoked sheer panic, which only increased as his phone rang unanswered. She tried calling over 20 times, and while Salah insists exhaustion didn’t grip him during his great trek, he didn’t pick up because he was fast asleep. She was also concerned if he had enough money, as was her husband, Salah Ghaly, who worked as a government administrator and traded in jasmine, Nagrig’s greatest export. He funded Salah’s football path, first to Ittihad in Basyoun, which was only a half-hour trip, then on to the Othmason club in Tanta, 90 minutes away, all before he became a teenager, followed by the almighty mission to Al Mokawloon.
Salah was eight when he started training there and rushed at opponents with the fearlessness of a microbus driver. “He was small, but his left foot and his shots were powerful,” Ghamri Abdel-Hameed el-Saadani, who was the juniors coach at the youth centre, says. “He was fast and could do things with the ball the other boys couldn’t.” Salah’s father knew it, and despite his own apprehensions about the big city and how it could swallow and spit out young hopefuls, he told Umm Mohamed they were doing the right thing.
Back to the entrance of Al Mokawloon’s youth sector, and just behind the black steel gates, lies a story that hasn’t travelled the world like the bus trip. One of Salah’s teammates had suggested they could stay at his uncle’s house in Greater Cairo for the week. It was located in the 10th of Ramadan City and it took plenty of convincing for his parents to green-light the sleepover. Salah’s father gave him 60 Egyptian pounds and he set off. When they arrived at the house, in the black of the night, his friend’s uncle was not there. They were stuck, with not enough money or knowledge to find other lodgings.
All Salah knew of Cairo were the roads through it to train at Al Mokawloon. His friend, whose name he doesn’t want to reveal to avoid the media frenzy that accompanies any detail about his life, suggested the house of someone else he knew not too far away. When they got there, Salah encountered a bigger problem. The dwelling was in a cemetery, a saddening – and scary – symptom of Cairo’s severe housing shortage and high population density. Salah was not going to stay in the necropolis. His friend had one final plan: he knew an on-site administrator at Al Mokawloon who could let them in. Right behind the steel gate, they laid out the sheets they had packed on the floor into two makeshift beds.
Salah used his shoes as a pillow and set his alarm for 6am so the pair could be up before anyone caught them and the administrator got in trouble. They packed up their bedding and headed off, returning to the complex at 9am as though they had just arrived. The sleeping arrangement stayed secret but needed to be amended; there was too much jeopardy being so close to the entrance. The next day, the duo slept on Field 2 of the four pitches, in the open under the cold night sky. In the morning, they would again go into covert mode and Salah enjoyed that he could be early for training.
Salah had already packed in a lifetime’s worth of sacrifice, effort and lessons by his 18th birthday. The moment he will never forget, however, was when he joined the first team group and moved into the Al Mokawloon’s residences. “Not everyone could stay there, so psychologically I felt like I became someone, like a star,” Salah would recall. “I used to see players finish training and go upstairs, while I would leave to take the journey back to Nagrig. I’d think, ‘One day I’ll go up there’.” He would go higher than any other Egyptian footballer in history.
This is an edited extract from Only Mo Salah: An intimate portrait of the Egyptian King by Melissa Reddy, which is published by Orion Publishing and available from 13 August.
