Mohamed Salah became the first African player to score 50 UEFA Champions League goals on Wednesday, a milestone that underpinned Liverpool\u2019s progression to the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
The total places him joint 10th on the competition\u2019s all-time list, level with Harry Kane and Thierry Henry. The vast majority of those strikes have come since his arrival at Liverpool in 2017. Two came for Basel and one for Roma. He made only two Champions League appearances at Chelsea and failed to score there.<\/p>\n
Salah\u2019s most prolific Champions League campaign was 2017\u201318, when he scored 10 times as Liverpool reached the final in Kyiv, losing to Real Madrid after he was forced off with a shoulder injury following a controversial early clash with Sergio Ramos.<\/p>\n
After a remarkable 2024\u201325 season, his form has been more ordinary at times. A limited return in October and November resulted in him being dropped, but he produced a decisive performance on Wednesday. Even after an early setback when his penalty was saved, he continued to influence the match; Ekitik\u00e9 was grateful for the assist, calling his veteran teammate a “legend,” while manager Arne Slot emphasised his mental qualities.<\/p>\n
“It says a lot about him after you miss the penalty just before half time. That can sometimes be hard for an individual or for a team,” Slot commented afterwards.<\/p>\n
“So, he assisted the first to Hugo, great assist, and then scored a trademark goal, I think, which he scored many of, in this stadium for this club, coming inside, finding the top corner. So, that tells you a lot about his mental strength.”<\/p>\n
Salah has failed to start only one of 14 Liverpool fixtures since returning from the Africa Cup of Nations in January. That single absence was the weekend\u2019s 1\u20131 draw against Tottenham Hotspur, a deliberate decision to rest him three days before Galatasaray\u2019s visit. “Injury-wise, he was asking for a substitution, not because he thought he had scored enough, but that he felt something, so let\u2019s see where he is for the weekend.”<\/p>\n
With Liverpool due to meet Paris Saint-Germain at least twice more this season, Salah can add to his tally. The next inactive players ahead of him are Ruud van Nistelrooy (56) and Thomas M\u00fcller (57), with a larger gap to Ra\u00fal on 71. Active players nearby include Erling Haaland (57) and Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 (68).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Salah reached 50 Champions League goals, becoming the first African player to do so on Wednesday. 50<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[1211,299,1536],"class_list":["post-9041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","tag-africa-cup-of-nations","tag-arne-slot","tag-champions-league-goals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}