Salah Joins national team in Gabon

CAIRO-4 September 2021: Liverpool Egyptian winger Mohamed Salah arrived on Saturday in Libreville to join the Egyptian national team squad, who are preparing for the game against Gabon in the second round of the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.

Salah missed Egypt’s opening game in the qualifiers against Angola on Wednesday as the Premier League clubs refused to release their players to avoid 10-day quarantine on their return to England from countries included in the UK's red-list.

Salah is chasing a new record with the national team. The winger needs three goals to equal Mohamed Aboutika’s record as the Egyptian player with most goals scored in World Cup qualifiers.

He also needs to score in the current qualifiers to join an elite list of Hossam Hassan, Amr Zaki, Aboutrika and Ahmed Hassan, who netted goals in three different World Cup qualifiers.

Salah was Egypt’s joint-top goal scorer in 2014 World Cup qualifiers with 6 goals and he added another five goals in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers, including the late penalty against Congo, that secured Egypt’s spot in the World Cup in Russia.

Egypt plays in Group F of the qualifications alongside Angola, Gabon and Libya.

Egypt started the World Cup qualifiers with a 1-0 victory over Angola in Cairo to top group F alongside Libya who defeated Gabon 2-1 in the first round.

The group winner will reach the final stage of the qualifications alongside other 9 group winners. The 10 teams will compete in five knockout matches to decide the five nations that will represent Africa in the 2022 FIFA World Cup.