The Egyptian returned to action in style in New Jersey, helping Jurgen Klopp's side to a 2-1 win at a rain-drenched MetLife Stadium . Manchester City, who suffered at the 44-goal man's hands (or rather, feet) repeatedly last season, were again left to curse the former Roma man's presence. He is, it seems, the Premier League champions' tormentor-in-chief.
Salah marked his first game for the Reds since that ill-fated Champions League final appearance with a goal, headed home just 62 seconds after his appearance as a second-half substitiute. If Klopp worried about rustiness, he needn't have. Liverpool's star man looked like he hadn't missed a beat.
So too did Sadio Mane, whose stoppage-time penalty sealed the victory. The Reds have two of their deadly trio back, and their American supporters could hardly have been happier.
Together, Salah and Mane terrified a callow City side. Pep Guardiola's men, shorn of the majority of their own star names, post-World Cup, led through Leroy Sane but were overwhelmed as Liverpool sent on their big guns from the bench.
These sides served up a host of classics last season, but if they are to cross paths again this season – and it’s easy to imagine they will – then we can only hope it is in rather different settings.
The MetLife Stadium is some arena, a vast, 82,500-seater venue which cost close to $2 billion (£1.5bn) to build. It hosts two NFL teams, the Giants and the Jets, and is among the favourites to stage football’s biggest fixture, the World Cup final, in 2026.
Let’s pray they produce a playing surface worthy of the occasion, if that is to be the case.
Here, it played host to the Premier League’s two most exciting sides, teams who thrilled so many, so regularly last season. Teams who met each other four times and served up 18 goals in the process.
The idea of another classic here was always a little far-fetched, of course. Pre-season is not a time for full-throttle football or for ultra-competitiveness. It is, as a terse Pep Guardiola told Goal before kick off,”about preparation, nothing else.”
Still both Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp might have expected a better pitch on which to continue those preparations. Good enough for Taylor Swift, who performed here last weekend, perhaps, but not fit for football.
“A wet pitch is better than a dry pitch,” a smiling Klopp told us pre-match. He hadn’t seen the “wet pitch” at that point. His grin won’t have lasted long.
Klopp is a regular critic of Premier League surfaces, often bemoaning those which are too dry or where the grass is too long. It grates with rival supporters at times and has led to accusations of excuse-making.
Here, his complaints were entirely understandable. Both Liverpool and City were lucky to get out of this friendly match unscathed.
The grass pitch, installed on top of the regular synthetic surface used for NFL games only 24 hours prior to this fixture, was a shocker. Bumpy and bare, with sand covering the patches where there was no grass, it was a manager’s nightmare, and helped ruin the spectacle for the spectators who braved the New Jersey rain to attend. Players slipped and slid, the ball bobbled unpredictably, and both sets of players looked uneasy, as if playing with the handbrake on. Even assured performers, such as Virgil van Dijk, looked affected. Klopp and Guardiola will have winced every time a challenge went in.
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