Feature31 tales of Mohamed Salah's genius, professionalism and humility

Many aspects of the Egyptian superstar are well known after nine years of brilliance as a Red, but others are less familiar.

Here are 31 anecdotes that paint a picture of the world-class footballer and unique individual who will say farewell to Anfield on Sunday.

William Palmer, Liverpool fan in Pittsburgh: "I was between meetings downtown, so I went into the Starbucks in the hotel lobby. I saw Mo sitting there with Curtis [Jones] and Dom [Szoboszlai]. I was really not there to try to ask for selfies or autographs or anything. I just pulled my laptop out as I was planning to and did some work. I knew that Mo was big into online chess from a couple of interviews that he had done and I had got into it a few years earlier. I just thought, 'I'm not going to go bug them but I'll give him the easiest out ever. I'll hold up a chessboard from across the room and if he sees me and he just laughs it off, then that'll be fine.' But as soon as he saw the board, he waved me over.

"He was asking me first to say my username. It's a long name and I was trying to give it to him letter by letter. Then he was like, 'Just take my phone and put it in yourself.' So he handed me his phone, I added myself on chess.com and then I let them do their thing. When they went up to the hotel room, he challenged me on the app to a quick game and we played. I lost the game. I think they only had a small window because they ended up coming down to leave for training pretty soon after and he saw me again on the way down, smiled and said, 'Great job, good playing, you played well.' It was just him being nice – it really was not that close a game. Then in the evening we played another game. We just happened to both be online, so played another game that same day. I won that game! Got him with one of my favourite traps."

James Milner (to BBC Sport): "He wants to be the best at everything. He even got a chess teacher to improve his game and gave me a thumping a good few times."

Norihiro Fukayama, Buddhist monk and chief of administration at Ekoin Temple in Japan: "Last summer I had the honour of guiding a meditation session for members of Liverpool FC at the Koyasan Tokyo Betsuin. Mohamed Salah stood out not only for listening so carefully during the session but also for approaching me afterwards to ask several thoughtful and personal questions about meditation. He mentioned that he already practises meditation in his daily life. I was very impressed by his curiosity and sincerity. He left a very strong and lasting impression on me.

"I also remember that when he entered the main hall, he respectfully bowed toward the principal Buddhist image. This gesture showed a deep sense of respect and openness toward Buddhism, which I found very admirable. After this experience, I found myself drawn to him and I began following his matches and results. I feel that he has a rare combination of charisma and genuine humanity, which makes him a truly remarkable individual."

Arne Slot: "Already the first day I was impressed by his professionalism because as with any season, it starts with a test that shows how much they did in the off-season and he beat all of them. He was the fittest player that came back, and I think that's the ideal situation that you want as a manager: that your star player comes back as fit as he did."

Jürgen Klopp: "The desire for scoring made him the most uncomfortable player to rotate. Mo decided in his head which game is appropriate for him to rotate and which not. That you had then really the situation, 'Now it's enough, 60 here, 60 there.' I took him off after 85 minutes, that was five plus extra time, 10 minutes, he could have scored three goals, in his mind."

Trent Alexander-Arnold: "At any given moment throughout the season you could ask him, one of his competitors in a Golden Boot race, how many goals are they on? And he'd be able to tell you. Top five in the Golden Boot race right now, he'll be able to tell you. At any given moment throughout the season, how far away are you from the top? 'Well, [Erling] Haaland's on this' or '[Harry] Kane's on this'. 'But he scored six pens and we've only got two', that kind of thing. And then once he started realising he could get assists, that's when it was like, 'Whoa'. He would know everyone's stats."

Michael Reid, football data editor at Opta: "We obviously have data for all the Premier League era, so from 1992-93 onwards, but Salah's records were so ridiculous that we realised we had to go beyond that. The amount of times we were doing stats and you'd try to put other players up on a leaderboard but Salah would be just there ahead of them. It would be just impossible to get a table where Salah wasn't above this player because he was so multifaceted. What we tried to do was get maybe two or three Salah records or stats lined up before every game. He got to a point where every time he gets a goal or assist, there's some sort of record he's breaking."

Jordan Henderson: "He was just constantly working to improve. For nine years, every day. There was never a day off. Even when he was off in the summer, he was just constantly working. Always thinking, 'How can I be better next season?'"

Klopp (to That Peter Crouch Podcast): "He was not happy with his finishing in Rome or wherever and he built a goal in a back garden. Every year he came from a summer break – where he had not really a summer break, playing with Egypt or whatever – after two weeks and added a new skill, a new idea."

Ben Foster, former Watford goalkeeper in 2021: "He came up to me at full-time and he's got his hand over his mouth a little bit because he didn't want the cameras to catch it so much. He's come up and he's gone, 'Ben, if I'd have got a penalty, which way would you have dived?' Now as soon as he said that I thought, 'Oh you clever, clever boy.' Because we do our research, all the goalkeepers out there do their research on strikers.

"I've looked at him and I've gone, 'OK, I'd have dived to my right because you put your last five penalties to the right.' A big smile came upon his face, a big grin and he went, 'Thank you, I need to know, I need to know.' So not content with just winning the game 5-0 and being Man of the Match and scoring an unbelievable goal, he has to know the tiny little details."

Alexander-Arnold: "I remember speaking to him, maybe after the 2021-22 season I think, I just went to him and I said, 'What is it that drives you? What is it? You've smashed every record now. What's the end goal now?' And he's like, 'I just want to be the best.' I was like, 'Oh, so that means what, you want the most goals in Premier League history?' He was like, 'It would be nice, but I just want to be the best version of me that I can possibly be, and on every day I push myself to be that, which means that at the end I'll look back and think I got everything out of what I was given.' So of course he was highly motivated by the records and everything and the awards and the accolades that he could win, but his priority was making sure he was the best version of him."

Erik Pieters, former left-back for Stoke City and Burnley: "When I knew I was going to play Liverpool, I had to prepare knowing it's going to be 95 full minutes of concentration. You think you have him in the pocket for 80 minutes but then out of the blue he just comes out, cuts inside, top bins, and you're like, 'OK, thank you. I thought I had a good game but he just embarrassed me over there.' In the beginning you might just push him off the ball and stuff but then he was sharper, fitter, stronger, like, 'How fit can a guy be?' It's unbelievable. In team meetings [before games against Salah] mainly you get the information like, 'Good luck, mate!' At one point in his career, from every single position he was dangerous, so good luck defending that."

Andy Robertson: "I've seen so many players come in and all of a sudden they're in the gym so early before training – and that's because of him."

Alexis Mac Allister (to The Players' Tribune): "For a few weeks, I actually tried to get to the gym before him but it was impossible. He was always there already, sweating. When I first arrived, I tried to compete with him. I thought, 'OK, the guy is 31. I'm 24. Let's do some abs.' Damn, I think I did three sessions with Mo before I gave up. I would wake up the next morning and I was so sore I could barely sit up in bed."

Andreas Kornmayer, Liverpool's head of fitness and conditioning from 2016 until 2024: "If you tell him to be there [in the gym] half an hour before training, he will be there one hour before."

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (to All Out Football): "In terms of as professionals, I've never seen anyone do what Mo does every hour of the day. He's installed ice baths, ice chambers, cryo chambers in his house and red-light therapy. The amount of times before training I used to get up for a coffee and I'm seeing Mo running before training with his hat on like Rocky! I put my window down and I'm like, 'Mo, what are you doing?' He's like, 'I'm loosening off before training.' He'll go to training, he's the first in the gym, then he trains how he trains, he's in the gym doing treatment, therapy, whatever, doing another gym session. It was an obsession."

Harvey Elliott: "We were in Austria and it was breakfast or dinner and I had two bread rolls, like I do with every meal just because it's one of my favourites. He came over to me and was like, 'No, no, no. Put them back. Here, have the brown ones.' I was thinking, 'Wow, he's scanning what I'm trying to eat or eating and helping me out.' That's just one of about a thousand stories."

Robertson: "He doesn't like it when I have too much bread!"

Steven Gerrard: "He's always gone out of his way for [Gerrard's son] Lio as well or people I've ever had at the game. He's always made a beeline."

Henderson: "There's not this huge ego and he doesn't want to speak to people and he's just tunnel vision. When he walks out in the street, he can't do normal things. He can't. I went for some food with him a few months ago and people want to take pictures. He can't do normal stuff. There's all of that going on and how he deals with that, for me, is how special he is as a human being. Very, very humble and respectful of everyone."

Pieters: "On the pitch I never felt like I needed to tackle him, because I didn't want to tackle him because he's such a nice guy! It was just like, 'Let's try it out on the pitch and see who's the better footballer that day.' He's just a gentleman."

Colin Kampschoer, senior external relations officer at UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency: "Mo was announced as an ambassador for the Instant Network Schools programme, a joint initiative between UNHCR and Vodafone Foundation, providing access to digital learning for refugee students but also to the communities hosting these kids. Education is something that's close to his heart. He really helped put the programme on the map. It's currently in six countries and we have 164 schools with more launching soon. Someone of his stature, someone of his fame as well, he isn't afraid to speak about what's important. That's really what resonated with me – how strong he was about this issue. The most beautiful thing is how he can inspire people and how humble he is."

John Oliver (to the Daily Noah): "When I was with Mo at the Time 100, I remember I was trying to say to him what he meant to me, stumbling my way through it. He's listening in his patient way and then he said, 'Do you know Khaleesi [Game of Thrones actor Emilia Clarke]? Khaleesi's over there – can you please introduce me to Khaleesi?' Mo, if that's what you want then I will give that to you. That will be my gift to you."

Curtis Jones: "We've got this thing that we're not allowed our phones when we're there [at the coffee bar] having coffee. It's Mo who has brought in the rule. If we're inside there and I'm on the phone, then Mo will tell Dom, 'Will you text him and tell him that we're here and want to have a conversation with him?' In other words, 'Get off your phone! Why are you always on your phone?'"

Luis Diaz: "He helped me a lot because he was one of the first people that took us in when we got here, was the first to speak directly to us. Not only to myself but Darwin [Nunez] as well, he took us aside and told us, 'Whatever you need, I'm at your disposal. Try to keep doing what you were doing at your previous teams, don't put too much pressure on yourselves. This is a team like any other, well a bit bigger for the significance it holds, but you were already doing a fantastic job in your previous teams, so keep it up.' He's extremely attentive with what is happening in your surroundings, with your family. He would ask about them, how they're doing."

Neil Mellor (to the Liverpool Echo): "I was at the PFA awards [in 2018] and he is such a humble guy. He was there from start to finish for the whole evening. He picked up his award and congratulated every single award-winner on the night as well. In the past, I've been at awards dinners and the winners have come and gone once they have been given their award. Salah stayed throughout the whole thing to show his respect to the winners."

Daniel Sturridge: "I remember a conversation we had about chances and the feelings you have when you're running through and the psychology. He was always inquisitive about mentality. We both played with the likes of Didier Drogba, who was a big-game player, so we had that relationship. I think he never felt inferior to anybody – including the greats. I think he always felt like he had the capabilities to become great."

Ralph Hasenhuttl, who faced Salah six times while in charge of Southampton: "He was hard to catch every time. His deep runs and the relationship with [Virgil] van Dijk was very dangerous all the time. We had a very aggressive press against Liverpool or tried to do it. But because of these long balls in behind the last line, it was always very dangerous to defend him. One time at Anfield it was 0-0 and we played a fantastic first half with high pressing, stopping Van Dijk playing balls to him. And then in the second half we lost 4-0 because at half-time they analysed and they killed us with their transitions. As always, when you don't see him for a certain time, you can never be sure there's no coming threat from him. Because he was always a threat – always."

Simon Mignolet in 2019 (to the Daily Mail): "He sits next to me on the coach when we travel to games. He asks me about penalties and what ideas the opposition goalkeeper will have. I'll tell him he should do this or that. We practise penalties the day before a game and we work together. I try to do the same as the 'keeper he will face the next day to make it as realistic as possible."

Micah Richards (to the Daily Mail): "It was always Mo Salah's dream to be a Liverpool legend. I played with him at Fiorentina and when we used to go out for coffee, he talked about his ambition to move to Anfield eventually."

Reid: "It'll actually be harder to do stats now. Players will do quite well but then you'll have to say 'since Mo Salah' or 'in the last five seasons only Mo Salah has more goals and assists', because to overtake him is just pretty impossible."