Mohamed Salah’s World Cup dream ended the way so many sporting fairytales do: painfully close to something transcendent, but ultimately just out of reach. Egypt fell 3-2 to Argentina in the Round of 16 on July 7, and with it, the 34-year-old captain appears to have closed the book on his international career.
The defeat stings, but here’s the thing. What Salah and Egypt accomplished in this tournament was genuinely historic. They won their first-ever World Cup match. They reached the knockout stage for the first time. They made a country of over 100 million people believe, for a few glorious weeks, that the impossible was negotiable.
A historic run meets a brutal ending
Egypt’s campaign included victories in the group stage and the Round of 32, propelling them into uncharted territory for Egyptian football.
Then Argentina showed up.
