Champions League Final: Different beasts, different class
Real's Ronaldo and Liverpool's Salah share only the ability to destroy each other
If goals define the striker, then goal celebrations define the man. Both Cristiano Ronaldo and Mohamed Salah know this.
When Ronaldo hits the target, he finds the cameras. The shirt comes off. The six-pack tightens. The grin becomes a defiant grimace.
REAL MADRID | LIVERPOOL |
Every flexed pec and bulging vein serves as a physical testament to one man's devotion to athletic perfection.
When Salah scores, he prays.
He's done this 44 times this season. Whether he kisses the turf or quietly points to the heavens, Salah never forgets to express his gratitude.
In those out-of-body moments of pure euphoria, Salah still thinks of others. Ronaldo thinks of the next Instagram post.
That's the unfair perception, the exaggerated difference between Real Madrid's bronzed ego and Liverpool's humble servant.
The superficial contrast couldn't be greater if Salah ran out for the Champions League Final wearing white robes and Ronaldo arrived in a cape, promising to drink the blood of every Red in Kiev.
As characters, they are chalk and cheese, different in every aspect except one. They are both blessed with the ability to destroy the other.
Salah can deny Ronaldo one more starry night in the autumn of his career. Ronaldo can temporarily halt Salah's stratospheric rise towards football's summit.
Indeed, the Portuguese master might be miffed at the rapidly changing narrative; how one stellar season has catapulted Salah into the role of global peacemaker, community healer and all-round good guy.
Without doing anything wrong, Ronaldo finds himself cast as the villain, the beautiful face of a greedy, corporate game when compared to the selfless Egyptian.
A number of feel-good Salah stories have melted even the coldest of hearts.
At Salah's mosque in Liverpool, attendance figures have rocketed, with worshippers from all faiths turning up to follow in his footsteps. More Muslims now attend matches at Anfield.
In the Egypt presidential elections in March, Salah reportedly received over a million votes, despite not being a candidate.
While London's British Museum even added Salah's green football boots to its Modern Egypt exhibition.
He has also paid for a mosque, a school, a sewage plant and a dialysis machine in Nagrig, his home village, where streets and a youth centre bear his name.
In Egypt, he's known as "Our Son", a beacon of hope.
As a World Cup approaches in a country run by kleptocrats and cynicism dominates, Salah has come to represent an idealised version of what a footballer could be: decent, generous and honest (apart from the odd dive in the box).
Despite the relentless glare of the global spotlight, the 25-year-old still plays like he can't quite believe he's being paid to roll a ball into the net.
The fact that he's managed that feat 44 times should concern Real. Salah plays without fear. His childlike enthusiasm fuels him and endears him to others.
It's not as if Ronaldo has suddenly morphed into the pantomime bogeyman. It's just that his storyline isn't quite as adorable as the one about Liverpool's cultural phenomenon.
Ronaldo has 42 goals, just two fewer than Salah, but his silly stats are no longer a story. Even Juergen Klopp joked that the Bernabeu behemoth had "something like 47,000 goals".
He's in the running for another Ballon d'Or, another Champions League medal and another chance to rip off the shirt and flash the abs.
Ronaldo is a victim of his own muscular consistency, like watching the Thor movies on a loop.
But if the tale seems repetitive, it's not one that Zinedine Zidane tires of telling.
The Real Madrid coach insisted he wouldn't swop Ronaldo for Salah. He could hardly say anything else, but he astutely added that his striker was the man for the "complex moment".
A dip in form, niggling injuries, mistakes and missed sitters mean nothing to Ronaldo. He revels in the adversity, the chance to make amends.
In the 2016 final, he positively skipped towards the box to take the decisive penalty in the shootout. In last year's final, he scored twice against Juventus.
Salah belongs on the Champions League stage, but Ronaldo currently owns it.
If a chance falls to the 33-year-old in the final, he won't miss. He's been there, done that, ripped off the T-shirt.
Salah doesn't yet know how he'll react, but Liverpool certainly won't want the chance falling to anyone else.
Both strikers have carried their teams to the brink of European glory. Both men are united in one other, poignant aspect.
Their personalities may be poles apart, but neither man deserves to fail.
- l Catch Neil Humphreys as he gives his satirical take on the English Premier League and football every Saturday, from 10am to noon, on Money FM 89.3.
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