📍Nagrig, Basyoun, Gharbia, Egypt
1992 – 2012“Mohamed Salah was born in June 1992 in Nagrig, a farming village in the Nile Delta near the town of Basyoun, in Gharbia province, about 120 kilometres north-west of Cairo. He grew up in a three-storey family house, the eldest son of Salah Ghaly, who worked for the government and in the family's jasmine business, and Nahed. Nagrig was a quiet place of fields, canals and narrow lanes, and the boys of the village played football on any patch of ground they could find. Mohamed was mad about football from a young age, idolising Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo and Francesco Totti, and at about eight he began training at the Nagrig Youth Centre. He went on to play for teams in Basyoun and in Tanta, the provincial capital, and at fourteen he was taken on by Arab Contractors, a club in Cairo. To get to training, he had to leave school early and take several buses, from Nagrig to Basyoun, then to Tanta, then to Cairo, and on to the club in Nasr City, a journey that could take nearly ten hours a day there and back, five days a week. He never gave up, and his coaches were struck by his determination. He made his debut for Arab Contractors in 2010, and in 2012 he moved to Basel in Switzerland. At Liverpool he became one of the greatest players in the world, winning the Champions League and the Premier League. Nagrig is enormously proud of him, and he has funded a hospital, a school, an ambulance unit and a youth centre in the village, and continues to support its families.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📷 Location image · via Wikimedia Commons