Chasing Salah: The Biography

by Simon Hughes

Despite his consistency, his achievements and more-so, his visibility, he has never written an autobiography and a biography has never been written about him. He remains an enigmatic figure. We barely know how his teammates really feel about him and we do not know what he thinks of them. We do not really know about the world around how the events of the past decade in Egypt have impacted on his own life. We barely know what really motivates him. And we also know very little about where he is whether a deal to join the exodus of high level European-based footballers in Saudi Arabia really interests him. This biography seeks to answer those questions by attempting to speak to the people who know him best through a mixture of on-record and off-record interviews. A definitive biography to remember.

Genres: Football, Sports, Nonfiction

323 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 7, 2024

About the author

Simon Peter Hughes is an English cricketer and journalist. He is the son of the actor Peter Hughes, and the brother of historian Bettany Hughes.


Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

Reviews

[Bennynitro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some great insight into a very private player. Doesn’t follow a timeline so it does tend to jump back and forth in time a bit, which made it a little hard to follow at times. Shines a light on some of the darker periods of the Klopp era and the political machinations behind the scenes that may or may not have stopped the club from having more success during that period.

[Thomas Foster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book if you are interested:

- Mohamed Salah
- Liverpool FC
- intersection of sport and politics

The book is well done. It gives as much insight into Salah as possible because he is a very private individual. I learned a good deal about the Egyptian National Team, Salah’s relationship with Remy Abbas Issa and his rivalry with Sadio Mané. The author provides the right amount of detail on each subject. It read pretty briskly and all the information added to my understanding of the player. I would recommend this book wholeheartedly.

Read via audiobook.

[Colin A · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25/5. Well researched. Interesting to read about the context in which Salah grew up in Egypt and sad to hear about the actual underlying rifts with Klopp and Mane.

[Harry Patterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great insight into Mo’s origins and Egypts political issues. Interesting to hear on his frictions with Klopp and Manè at times, as well as about Ramy Abass, a very curious figure.

[Evan Hays · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sorry Si. I love your work on the Athletic and on the Walk On Podcast, but this book had many problems that I just couldn't overlook. And as a long-time Liverpool fan who has followed the team extremely closely during the years that this book covers, plus as someone who lived in Egypt (Salah's homeland) for a semester, I am in more of a position to judge than many.

First off, this book has a fundamental problem. Salah is a very private person who hardly ever gives interviews. Hughes did not have any first hand interviews with Salah to go on for this book. This meant that he had to rely on anonymous sources and conjecture to make most of his conclusions. Honestly, I would go so far as to say this book probably should not have been written.

Second, this book is all over the place and often couldn't make up its mind about what it really wanted to be. It jumps around with long asides on Sadio Mane, Liverpool's ownership, Klopp's personality, and transfer dealings, and none of this is in chronological order, making it even harder to piece together.

My main conclusion is that the author didn't really have enough to go on about Salah himself, so had to fill out the book with tangentially related information in order to write a story long enough for a book.

I did still gain a few new pieces of information, but nothing was really that new to me. Perhaps as someone who read many of the articles Simon wrote that provided the backbone for the book, I shouldn't be too surprised by this, but I was still hoping for more.

[Daryl Goh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched. Sometimes it feels like there’s a lot more exposition about the circumstances surrounding Salah than himself, but I also understand that it’s a result of a player keeping details on himself as light as possible to the public. The book feels in-depth but controlled in the information that is shared, which in some ways feels like the way Salah and his agent would like for it to be intended as well.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book. By pulling back the curtain, this biography does take away the sheen and awe that I felt as a Liverpool supporter over the past few years, showing that the BTS of Liverpool’s success was not as rosy as it seemed. It gives me a deeper respect for these elite players, knowing that they are juggling impossibly high athletic standards yet dealing with politics from within and external forces as well.

[Joshua Hus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great writing, very historically informative of Egypt and how the politics in the country related directly to Salah’s story. Overall, a little negative when it comes to Klopp x Salah and Mane x Salah relationship. Also, very negative on Klopp. I get that there are aspects that fans are not privy to outside of books like this, but there was very little kudos to a man who brought trophies to the club after YEARS of nothing. Unnecessary to paint him in a bad light. Felt like half great book, half hit piece on Salah and Klopp in favor of Mane and others.

[Ellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like it was a story about not only Salah. There were long paragraphs about other people, like Sadio Mane, Liverpool staff, Salah's manager Abbas. Although they give full picture on the happenings, sometimes they were so long, I forgot I'm reading Salah's biography. But altogether good book, especially as I quite vividly remember Salah's time in Liverpool FC from the start. Die-hard Klopp fans might not be ecstatic though.

[Murray · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best I have read on Liverpool.
The use of quality sources has allowed Simon to provide a real peek behind the curtain. The insights into the internal politics of both Egypt and LFC are fascinating.
Don’t read it if you believe football clubs are not the same as any other workplace! It’s not a fan boy book!

[Shannon Heaton · Rating 4 out of 5]

What the book does do is walk through Salah's development as a player and the roads he took to become a professional. These are good things to write about. We don't know very much about Salah the person, and I think we might not ever get to know. I always in reading this had to settle myself for being content with what's known.

[Amr Fahmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good read and I was positively surprised how Simon was so accurate to details about Egypt and didn't have that kind of orientalist tone.
The book covers so much about Salah, I personally liked the chapter on the rivalry eith teammate Mané and the lights shed on his lawyer-agent.

[Scott Cann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book for anyone mildly LFC interested. As expected it doesn’t get into the psyche of salah as Salah has never offered that part of himself out.

Really interesting hits regarding the internal club politics and his relationship with Klopp.

[Tom Jaakola · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent recap of the exhilarating story and life of the Anfield great and Egyptian King MO SALAH!

[Josh Keatley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. So good getting an insight into the mind and thinking of Salah.

[Oliver Mateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this in one weekend. I appreciate that it is not a monument to Mo or LFC. It’s a raw unpolished story that gave me a new perspective of my favourite team.

[Diego · Rating 5 out of 5]

Si’s a great writer. The way that he took the full trajectory of Mo’s career from Egypt to England was informative, eyebrow-raising, and punchy.

[Isaac Marschall · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5⭐️

[Oliver De Hauteville Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book, enjoyed reading about rivalry with mane, and an interesting side to Klopp

[Jake Holmes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good insight into a difficult to access figure. The book provides behind the scenes context on Salah’s life whilst also explaining the business side of his ventures.