Wayne Rooney calls out Mohamed Salah for actions on international duty with Egypt

Manchester United icon Wayne Rooney has slammed Mohamed Salah for his penalty shoot-out antics with Egypt. The new Plymouth boss could not understand the reasoning behind Salah taking a fifth spot-kick for his country, when the decision spectacularly came back to haunt the Liverpool stars.

Rooney had been referencing the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations final between Egypt and Senegal, a meeting between two then-Reds leading men Salah and Sadio Mane.

Mane, now of Saudi Arabian outfit Al-Nassr, dispatched his effort from 12 yards but Salah curiously did not take a penalty as Egypt were eliminated before he was scheduled to fire at goal.

As Egypt captain, Salah was set to take the fifth and perhaps most decisive penalty, but having watch his team-mates miss twice and Senegal go faultless from the spot, Mane instead celebrated without Salah having his say on the shoot-out.

“I don’t get players who go fifth [in a penalty shootout],” Rooney told The Overlap. “Salah went fifth with Egypt. They’re doing it to try and get the glory of winning the game, I don’t get it, it might never get to you.

“For me, you’d have your best penalty taker go number one, second best number two, and so on. You might never get to number five, so it doesn’t make sense for me. If you start well, and they miss, you’ve got a better chance [of winning].”

Salah’s penalty strategy is one also employed by Cristiano Ronaldo. Euro 2016 champions Portugal lost 3-0 in a shoot-out to Chile in the Confederations Cup the following year, with Ronaldo notably absent from taking aim at the goalkeeper from 12 yards, as he was waiting to take the fifth kick.

The same events unfolded five years earlier at Euro 2012 when Ronaldo attempted to be the headline-maker by taking the last of five Portugal penalties in their semi-final with Spain. But his team-mates missed twice and Spain went on to reach, and then win, the final in Kyiv.

Many teams want their most reliable penalty taker to step up at what is often considered the most pressured point of the shoot-out, but that decision can spectacularly backfire if the previous four fail to reach the last spot-kick.

Rooney is not Salah’s only critic for the choice to take Egypt’s fifth against Senegal, as Jamie Carragher was similarly baffled. “That is why your best penalty taker should never go fifth,” he wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter) at the time. “Mo Salah not taking a penalty for Egypt in a shootout in a final is madness.”

While ex-Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy felt that Salah’s “ego” was to blame, as he told talkSPORT: “I think ego takes over when you want to take the fifth. Instead of thinking, ‘what is best for the team?’ Your best penalty taker shouldn’t be fifth – that I do agree on. So many times you don’t get a fifth penalty.”