5 reasons why Cristiano Ronaldo will outshine Mohamed Salah

Two of the best players in the world will face each other when Egypt meet Portugal in a friendly encounter. Since Mohamed Salah is the star of the Premier League and Cristiano Ronaldo is on a scoring spree in the Spanish league, there is much hype around this face-off.

The Egyptian is in the form of his life and with the Portuguese back in form again, this will be a clash of the Titans. While both of them are evenly-matched due to their current form, there is a feeling that Cristiano Ronaldo will outshine the former Roma star.

And here are 5 reasons why…

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#5 Experience

The Portugal captain is now 33 years old and has tons of experience playing at the top-level. Salah, meanwhile, is younger and might be quicker, but in the biggest of matches, experience always edges out—especially when it comes to Cristiano Ronaldo.

Whenever people criticise him for being an old hack, he comes back stronger. He knows that his body doesn’t support him like it used to, so he uses his experience to make the use of his time of the pitch. His off-the-ball runs are a testament to that he is always looking for that little space to run into and maximize his chances to score.

And since he has played so much football, his brain is auto-triggered about what to do next.

#4 Portugal are a better team

European champions

This is not something we say often, but Portugal are the current European champions and definitely have a stronger team than Egypt. What’s more, they have more talented players now than the batch that won the Euros in 2016.

Bernardo Silva, Gelson Martins, Goncalo Guedes and Ruben Neves are highly talented players that make Portugal a much stronger outfit. And then there is Andre Silva—who Cristiano claimed is the heir to his Portugal throne—which makes the Iberian unit a formidable one.

Alongside these players, it is only natural to expect him overshadowing Mohamed Salah.

#3 No pressure

Not a burden to win, but just the hunger

Since this is a friendly match, there is not much pressure on the players to perform. There is, however, always hype surrounding these two players since they are the stars of their respective leagues. But the truth is that the intensity in a friendly is much less than in competitive games.

As a result, the players can play with lesser weight on their shoulders. When such a thing happens, the players can actually enjoy their game and play it for the fun of it. When Cristiano Ronaldo does that, he usually rips apart the defence of the opposition to shreds.

And given that Egypt’s defence isn’t as sturdy as some of the best teams in Europe that the Portuguese usually faces, he could have a ride here.

#2 Ronaldo is in form

The Golden touch

At the beginning of the season, he was in terrible form. In his first 14 league games, he scored only four goals. In his next 9 games, however, he took his tally to 22 goals by scoring 18 goals in them—which is a ratio of two goals-per-game.

While Mohamed Salah might also be a man in form—he, like Cristiano, scored four goals and provided an assist in his last game—he can’t boast the same level of brilliance like the Portuguese can. In his last 10 games, Ronaldo has scored 19 goals while also providing three assists.

Salah, meanwhile, has 12 in his last 10 games with three assists to his name too. So, a case could be made about the Portugal captain being in better form.

#1 The captain

The leader

When the Real Madrid number 7 has the captain’s armband, he seems like a totally different person on the field. One can never forget how he let Karim Benzema take the penalty against Alaves because he wanted the Frenchman to be on the scoresheet.

This happened when Ronaldo was on a hat-trick and could have scored it from the penalty. With Portugal, the leadership takes over him and he becomes a far better player on the pitch. He ensures that he leads his team-mates to glory and puts his personal aspirations behind for the better of the team.

And when that happens, he becomes a much more complete player.