Near the end of a two-hour open training session held Wednesday under partially cloudy and sporadically wet skies at Gonzaga\u2019s Luger Field, members of Egypt\u2019s World Cup team took turns finishing on goal, taking crosses from both sides of the freshly manicured playing surface.<\/p>\n
Mohamed Salah, the 33-year-old global soccer icon and English Premier League record-holder, took one particular volley out of the air, belting a left-footed shot wide of the upright and into a crowd of fans watching some 20 feet behind the frame.<\/p>\n
Reacting to the shot, one fan wearing a Liverpool shirt \u2013 the EPL club where Salah spent nine seasons, transforming into one of the game\u2019s biggest stars \u2013 jokingly quipped his life would\u2019ve been complete had he been struck in the head and concussed by a wayward shot from the decorated Egyptian striker.<\/p>\n
The full force of Salah was on display \u2013 in more ways than one \u2013 during Wednesday\u2019s practice, which was opened to a few-hundred fans and media members five days before Egypt\u2019s World Cup opener against Belgium at Seattle\u2019s Lumen Field.<\/p>\n
Salah, as he\u2019s been for Liverpool and Egypt fans for much of the past decade, was the main attraction for fans who were able to score the limited tickets made available to the early afternoon session on Gonzaga\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n
Most of the striker\u2019s touches were met with audible gasps during a scrimmage and the crowd of a few-hundred applauded when Salah duped teammate Emam Ashour dribbling down the right wing before pushing a pass across the face of the goal to Manchester City\u2019s Omar Marmoush, who easily drove the ball into the net.<\/p>\n
Egyptian players left Northern Quest Resort and Casino and arrived at Luger Field slightly after noon, going through a warm-up jog before joining Gonzaga President Katia Passerini for a brief public address before beginning practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWelcome to Spo-Cairo,\u201d one fan shouted from the metal bleachers.<\/p>\n
Spokane will serve as the temporary base camp for Egypt, which is making its fourth-ever World Cup appearance and first since 2018. The team is coached by 59-year-old Hossam Hassan, who holds the country\u2019s career record for goals scored (69).<\/p>\n
For the time being, that is.<\/p>\n
Salah is two goals shy of equaling his coach\u2019s all-time mark and could tie or surpass it during group stage games against Belgium (June 15), New Zealand (June 21) and Iran (June 26) or in potential knockout games. Based in Spokane, Egypt won\u2019t be more than an hour plane flight from either of its World Cup locations in Seattle and Vancouver, B.C.<\/p>\n
Egypt players went through passing and possession drills before breaking into two teams and starting a scrimmage that encompassed the majority of the two-hour training session.<\/p>\n
Hamza Abdelkarim, an 18-year-old striker who plays for Barcelona\u2019s B team and enters this week\u2019s tournament as the youngest Egyptian player to make a World Cup roster, was the scrimmage\u2019s first scorer, finishing about 15 feet from the goal after a teammate\u2019s initial shot was deflected by goalkeeper Mahdy Soliman. Salah didn\u2019t score but had multiple shot attempts turned away by the crossbar during the scrimmage.<\/p>\n
The session finished with players attempting to finish close-range shots off crosses and corner kicks. Between attempts, a group of fans broke into the signature chant Liverpool fans created for Salah early in his career: \u201cMo Salah! Mo Salah! Mo Salah! Running down the wing. Mo Salah la-la-la la-ahh, the Egyptian King!\u201d<\/p>\n
Salah, Abdelkarim and a few other Egypt players stuck around briefly after the practice to greet fans, signing autographs and taking photos. Players were not made available to speak with the media.<\/p>\n
Among those in attendance were Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown, Gonzaga basketball coach Mark Few, Director of Athletics Chris Standiford and former Zags wing Jalen Warley, who\u2019s been in and out of Spokane recently while going through pre-NBA draft workouts. Gonzaga assistants Jorge Sanz and Zach Norvell Jr. came to catch the training session, as did General Manager Kurt Bambauer. Spokane Velocity coach Leigh Veidman attended with multiple members of the team\u2019s coaching staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Near the end of a two-hour open training session held Wednesday under partially cloudy and sporadically wet skies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-728814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}