Once again, the international break has been extremely cruel to Liverpool FC. Superstar winger Mo Salah has tested positive for the coronavirus, making him highly unlikely to play, eight days from now, against first place Leicester City.
According to the Egyptian Football Association: “The medical survey conducted showed that our international player Mohamed Salah [of] Liverpool was infected with the Coronavirus after his survey came back positive.”
Mo Salah was the only Egyptian player to test positive.
Mo Salah tests positive for Covid after doing this at a wedding. Seriously, we need to stop players leaving their club bubbles amid this pandemic.
International breaks are not working on so many levels #LFC pic.twitter.com/02WzezFVuk
— Kevin Palmer ? (@RealKevinPalmer) November 13, 2020
While it is impossible to pinpoint the exact moment that one contracts the virus, the video above is a strong contender. We’ve seen numerous weddings and wedding receptions materialize as covid superspreader events, so it is strongly possible that Salah became exposed to the virus on that day.
Thankfully, he is doing well and showing no symptoms, and Liverpool plan to test him again under their supervision. The hope is he’ll return a negative test and be cleared to go, similar to what happened to Xherdan Shaqiri.
The attacking midfielder tested false positive with Switzerland during the last international break, only to then return a second test, with a negative result and thus allowing him to play.
With Mo Salah in the mandatory ten day protocol of isolation, he’s very unlikely to feature in the crunch clash against Leicester next weekend, and his status is also in doubt for the next game after that. Liverpool take on Atalanta in the UEFA Champions League group stage, at Anfield four days after the Leicester match.
The Mo Salah news comes at the absolute worst time, with news yesterday that defender Joe Gomez could be lost for the season after undergoing knee surgery. Right now, the team is in the midst of a deep injury/unavailability crisis.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.