Monday 30 / December / 2024
Muscat: Although the dust may have settled on Real Madrid’s Champions League victory over Liverpool, the many incidents that peppered the game last night will remain shrouded in mystery for some time to come.
Goalkeeper Karius’ howler did draw a line in the sand as far as the game was concerned, but Liverpool fans will point to a far more decisive moment midway through the first half that irrevocably changed the tide of the match.
“This momentous occasion deserved one. An occasion brought around by a Liverpool legend called Karius,” said Zarshis Avari, his words dripping with barely-concealed sarcasm. “Hats off to you sir. What a way to gift Madrid the match.”
In the 26th minute, Mohamed Salah, the pride, hope and joy of Jurgen Klopp’s brave, swashbuckling side, Mohamed Salah, scorer of 44 goals and recipient of this season’s Premier League Golden Boot, was thundered into by Madrid defender Sergio Ramos. Salah tumbled to the floor, his shoulder absorbing the painful impact of crashing to the ground.
Salah rose to his feet, gingerly, giving himself the quick once over to see if everything was okay. A few feet away, Ramos, whose tackle had sent him earthwards, backed away quickly, and set up organising his defenders, to draw attention away from what he’d just done. If this were a cartoon, he’d have been pointedly looking away, whistling nonchalantly as he tried to escape the crime scene.
It wasn’t just Ramos who knew what he’d done. The Liverpool players exchanged incredulous looks among themselves: how that challenge failed to receive a yellow card was beyond them, but at the core of that incredulity seemed to lie a seed of worry – would Salah be able to carry on? The Egyptian had decided to soldier on, but something was not right.
Salah continued to embark on his trademark lung-busting runs, streaking forward in an attempt to disrupt the Madridista defence, but something seemed off: he seemed to lack that extra yard of pace, that instinctiveness of knowing where to turn, that split-second decision making that told him whether he needed to pass or shoot.
From the sidelines, Jurgen Klopp, the man who masterminded Liverpool’s crazy, almost unbelievable run to the final, urged his men to fight on: he too knew Salah was in distress. The stubbly German exchanged worried glances with his substitutes. Adam Lallana was instructed to warm up, but how soon would he be coming on?
Soon enough, as it turns out: Salah, who had led many a Liverpool attack and counterattack this season, on whose now-bruised shoulders lay the hopes of a city, and millions of fans from across the globe, could not carry on. He looked around him, searching for a solution to his dilemma. His vision blurred by the tears that were streaking down his face, Salah was gently escorted off the pitch by Liverpool’s physio, the anguish clear on the faces for all to see. Scans later revealed he had dislocated his shoulder, an injury that could take weeks to heal.
As a sporting round of applause rang out from all around the Olimpiyskiy Stadium in Kiev, players and supporters alike searched for an answer. Why had this happened?
Had they but looked a few metres beyond Salah’s stricken form, they’d have found their answer. When you first look at Sergio Ramos, he doesn’t seem to be your no-nonsense, vicious defender. For starters, he’s Spanish. They don’t do rough tackling in Spain, do they? With his tattooed torso, slicked-back hair and poster-boy good looks, Ramos’ image as one of the darlings of Spanish football is a carefully cultivated one, that has brought him plenty of corporate endorsements, with brands such as Nike, Hugo Boss, Pepsi, Gatorade and Microsoft all employing him as a brand ambassador.
This image, though, only glosses over Ramos’ darker arts of defending. He may not appear to be cut from the same cloth as Vinnie Jones or Claudio Gentile, but there is a pattern to this underhanded approach he seems to employ in the biggest of games. Ramos knows full well that he is going in with the intention to unsettle the other team, whether he manages to successfully tackle the opposition is a different matter altogether.
“No matter what happens, after the Ramos-Salah incident, I think everyone now knows Real Madrid are a dirty team...bunch of cheats and the ref as usual didn't see it,” fumed Ahmad Hosny, an Egyptian Liverpool fan. “Is this the first time Ramos has done something like this? Is this the first time Real Madrid play a good team and mysteriously their best player gets injured or sent off? It happens every single game, it's a dirty tactic and Real Madrid are masters of dark arts.”
“Ramos is a dirty, dirty filthy dirty player!” railed Jonathan Vatikiotis. “He should be suspended for that stuff.”
The fact of the matter is that when the stakes are so high, Ramos purposefully goes into tackles that place getting the ball as secondary, and causing bodily harm as his first objective. More often than not, it is key opposition players, who are not as physically strong as him that are sought out, or those who are key to the other team, so as to maximise the impact provided, not just on the pitch, but psychologically as well. As Salah trudged off the pitch, TV cameras panned to a shot of Ramos exchanging a vicarious grin with the match officials, taking evident pleasure at robbing Liverpool of the player that most symbolised their hope.
In Mo Salah, he had the perfect target: Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane had lead Liverpool’s assault to the Champions League title, but it was Salah who best personified the Red’s reckless, brave style of play.
In taking Salah out of the game, Sergio Ramos has blackened his reputation and his name not just in the city of Liverpool, but across a nation as well. Egypt’s first game at the 2018 FIFA World Cup takes place against Uruguay on June 15, and people all across the land of the Pharaohs will be fervently hoping their latest Pharaoh will win the race against time to walk out onto the pitch, alongside their other major star, Arsenal’s Mohamed El Neny, who is also recuperating from injury to be fit for the World Cup.
Salah making it onto the pitches at Yekaterinburg, St Petersburg and Volgograd, will decide just how Egyptians will remember that tackle. But irrespective of whether he turns out for Egypt at the World Cup, one thing is certain: Sergio Ramos and his infamous tackle that ended Mohamed Salah’s Champions League final will live long in their memories, and not for the right reasons.
