Mo Salah has the chance to lay the ghosts of 2018 as his brace seals World Cup berth for Egypt

Mo Salah will get the chance to play at the World Cup finals for the second time next summer after Egypt clinched their place at the 2026 tournament in North America on Wednesday evening.

The Liverpool superstar hasn’t been his usual prolific self at the beginning of this season, with just three goals in 10 games, and he even had his worth ethic called into question by Wayne Rooney following the defeat to Chelsea last weekend.

However, the 33-year-old was unsurprisingly the headline act in his country’s 3-0 win over Djibouti this evening, a result which secured World Cup qualification for the Pharaohs with a match to spare – they round off their campaign at home to Guinea-Bissau on Sunday.

Salah scores twice as Egypt qualify for 2026 World Cup

Salah scored twice against the bottom team in CAF Group A, doubling Egypt’s lead in the 14th minute with a firm left-footed finish and rounding off the victory late on with an exquisite volley over the head of opposition goalkeeper Omar Mohamed Mahamoud.

The Liverpool forward will turn 34 during next summer’s World Cup finals, which’ll almost certainly be his last shot at playing in the competition, and he’ll be especially delighted to get that chance after the anti-climax of 2018.

Salah earns his shot at World Cup redemption

The Reds’ number 11 had the season of his life in the run-up to that tournament, scoring 44 times in his first campaign at Anfield, but his experience in Russia was a morose one for him and his country.

Salah wasn’t at peak fitness that summer due to Sergio Ramos’ hatchet job on him in the Champions League final in Kyiv, and although the winger recovered to score twice at the finals, Egypt lost all three group games and he didn’t get to show his true self on the world stage.

Thankfully he’ll have the opportunity to lay the ghosts of 2018 at next year’s World Cup, and it’d be an understatement to say that he deserves another shot at inspiring his nation to unprecedented heights on the biggest stage of them all.

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