Mohamed Salah presented his Ballon d’Or bonafides tonight with two goals and two assists in Liverpool’s 5-2 win over AS Roma in the home leg of their UEFA Champions League semifinal tie. The PFA Player of the Year assisted on goals scored by Roberto Firmino (who also had a brace himself) and Sadio Mane.
The Pharaoh found himself the talk of the sports world today, as some football pundits believe he could be the third best player in the world right now.
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Salah, who was assisted by Firmino on both of his scoring strikes, has scored 10 goals in the Champions League this season, the most by a Liverpool player in a single season in European competition.
Liverpool scored five times in a 33 minute span, and it was the time of blitz that was discussed in Jurgen Klopp’s pregame press conference. It marked the sixth time in the last six months that Klopp’s side has gone up 5-0 on an opponent.
However, this tie isn’t over however, as Roma scored twice in the final ten minutes, and that margin leaves the door ajar for the next leg in Rome, because, as we remember….
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“Now we have to work again at Rome. That’s no problem,” said Klopp after the game.
“There would have been work for us to do when we win 5-0 because Roma would have tried everything to strike back anyway, so that’s not a big difference.”
“What I learned tonight is that we can win the second game as well, even when it will be different. Roma needs to score goals against us. I said it a few times, it should not sound like a warning or something, [but] we are not Barcelona. Barcelona is one of the two or three best teams in the world and they have won so many things in the last few years and we didn’t.”
“We will fight with all we have for that result again. It’s much better than I could have expected before the game. But now in the moment I, of course, feel the two goals we conceded.”
“To be 100 percent honest, I’m already in the Stoke game [on Saturday]. I’m much more interested in the Stoke game at the moment.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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