Explained: Mohamed Salah goal celebrations & meaning behind Liverpool star's on-pitch gestures

Ryan Kelly

Explained: Mohamed Salah goal celebrations & meaning behind Liverpool star's on-pitch gestures image

Goals are precious commodities in football, so it's important to celebrate each one as it comes and Liverpool star Mohamed Salah, like most great goalscorers, makes sure he does.

Cristiano Ronaldo appears to have settled on his famous 'Si!' celebration, while Antoine Griezmann tends to go for various dance routines, and Salah has had plenty of opportunities to cultivate some unique methods of marking goals in the past few seasons.

Some of them have been pretty standard, but a few others have been unusual and are the type that send supporters straight to Google to find out what they actually mean.

If you're a bit perplexed by Salah's celebrations and want to know what they mean, then you've come to the right place.

Mohamed Salah's yoga celebration

Towards the end of the 2018-19 season, Salah debuted a celebration which would have been immediately familiar to anyone who does yoga.

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After scoring Liverpool's second in their 2-0 victory over Chelsea at Anfield, the Egypt international stood before supporters, raised his left leg to the knee on his right leg and put his hands together as if in prayer.

"I am a yoga man!" a delighted Salah told Sky Sports after the game. "I do yoga and it just came into my mind."

The pose, which is known as 'the tree' in yoga, signifies balance and grounding, which led one yoga teacher to speculate that the forward was expressing his sense of commitment to Liverpool.

Salah has since produced the celebratory pose in games for Egypt and it looks to be one of his favoured methods of enjoying his goals.

1080x1080 Mohamed Salah yoga celebration

Mohamed Salah's nose celebration

During the 2019 Champions League final against Tottenham, Salah performed an unusual celebration after scoring Liverpool's opening goal.

The Reds star crossed his index fingers in an 'X' before bringing them up to either side of his nose and closing his nostrils, while simultaneously sticking out his tongue.

Salah has yet to explain the thinking behind it, but the bizarre move could simply have been a playful taunt - given the sticking out of the tongue - aimed at Spurs supporters.

Mohamed Salah Liverpool celebration 2018-19

Mohamed Salah outstretched arms celebration

One of Salah's most iconic celebrations involves him standing before the crowd, his face emotionless with his arms outstretched.

It is a celebratory stance which calls to mind the famous scene from Ridley Scott's Gladiator, in which Russell Crowe's character Maximus sardonically asks the crowd, 'are you not entertained?'

The outstretched arms could also be a nod to the song Liverpool fans sing in tribute to Salah, in which he is characterised as an Egyptian king, as he stands triumphantly before his people.

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Mohamed Salah prayer celebration

Like many footballers, Salah is deeply religious and one thing that is a constant in each of his celebratory routines is to perform a prayer of thanks by getting to his knees and placing his head on the ground.

The act is known as sujud and it is also performed by a number of Muslim footballers across the world, including Salah's Liverpool team-mate Sadio Mane.

Mohamed Salah Liverpool goal celebration prayer 2018-19

"It's not kissing the ground," the former Roma star told CNN in 2018.

"It's something like praying or like thank God for what I have received, but yeah, it's just praying and praying for a win.

"[I’ve] always done that since I was young, everywhere.”

Salah and Mane are by no means alone in praying after scoring either, with the likes of Neymar and others notably making the Christian sign of the cross and pointing to the sky.

Ryan Kelly