Mohamed Salah's former youth coach has revealed the Liverpool star was originally a left-back in his side and he made the positional switch despite the Egyptian missing five clear-cut chances from full-back in one game.
El-Shishini of Egyptian side El Mokawloon saw the positives in Salah's showing in his side's 4-0 win, notably his dribbling and running ability from deep.
Image: PA
Revealing that Salah wept after the game, he elected to change his position and it proved to be a masterstroke.
"When I coached the under-16 team at El Mokawloon, I had five left full-backs and Salah was one of them," he told Bleacher Report.
"In one game in the under-16 Cairo League we were playing away against ENPPI, which has a very strong youth set-up.
"We won 4-0 and on that day Salah started at left-back and wasted no less than five one-on-one chances to score. What I saw was not the chances he missed, but his ability to dribble from the left-back position until he was one-on-one with the goalkeeper.
"All the running took something away from him, so he wasted the chances. But after this game, I saw Salah crying because of the chances he missed - he was weeping! From that day onwards I decided to play Salah as a right-winger."
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Though he never got going at Chelsea in his first stint in England, Salah has been a revelation this season and leads the Premier League goalscoring charts, having netted 14 so far.
Image: PA
The shift up the pitch had an immediate positive effect on Salah as a youngster, as El-Shishini explained.
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He added: "I told him he would be the team's top goalscorer in both leagues, the U16 Cairo League and the U17 Nationwide League.
"By the end of the season he had scored 35 goals combined. Since then, he has never stopped scoring."
Last month, when Salah scored his 15th goal in all competitions against former side Chelsea, Mamdouh Abbas, who didn't sign him for his local club, Zamalek SC in his native Egypt, back in the day, was in attendance after being invited by the Reds' No.11.
Top player, top bloke.
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: Liverpool, egypt, Premier League, Mohamed Salah
