Liverpool’s Egyptian striker #11 Mohamed Salah (C) attends a team training session at their training ground in Kirkby, Liverpool, north-west England, on December 8, 2025, on the eve of their UEFA Champions League, league phase football match against Inter Milan in Milan. At a cafe in a bustling Cairo neighbourhood, Liverpool games once drew wall-to-wall crowds, but with Mohamed Salah off the pitch, his Egyptian fans would now rather play cards or quietly doomscroll than watch the Reds play. Salah, one of the world’s greatest football stars, delivered an unusually sharp rebuke of manager Arne Slot after he was left on the bench for three consecutive games.
Adored by fans as the “Egyptian king, Salah told reporters he had been “thrown under the bus” by the club he has called home for seven-and-a-half years. The outburst divided Liverpool fans worldwide – but in the Cairo cafe, people knew what side they were on, and Tuesday’s Champions League clash with Inter Milan went unnoticed. “We’re upset, of course,” said Adel Samy, 40, a longtime Salah fan, who remembers the cafe overflowing with fans whenever he was playing.
On Tuesday evening, only a handful of customers sat at rickety tables – some hunched over their phones, others shuffling cards, barely glancing at the screen. “He doesn’t deserve what’s happening,” Samy told AFP. Islam Hosny, 36, who helps run the family cafe, said the street outside used to be packed with “people standing on their feet more than those who sat on chairs” whenever Salah played.
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“The cafe would be as full as an Ahly-Zamalek derby,” he told AFP, referring to Egypt’s fiercest football rivalry. “Now, because they know he’s not playing, no one comes.” At a corner table, a customer quietly asks the staff to switch to another match.
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