Both Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk have been freed by their respective nations and will be returning home to play for Liverpool.
Despite scoring in Friday’s African Cup of Nations qualification match against Mauritania, Salah will sit out Tuesday’s return match for Egypt. This year, Egypt is hoping to redeem themselves after being eliminated in the quarterfinals by DR Congo in last year’s AFCON competition; the Liverpool star scored twice to lead his team to a 2-0 win in Cairo.
His departure from his country’s training camp prior to their last international match in October has allowed him to return to Liverpool ahead of schedule.
After receiving two yellow cards in Friday evening’s 1-1 UEFA Nations League match with Hungary, Dutchman Van Dijk will also be leaving his nation’s camp early. The captain of the Anfield team will miss Monday’s match against Germany because of his first-ever red card on the international level.
After the game, the defender explained, “They say the captain is the only one who can talk to the referee,” admitting his “anger” at Swiss referee Lukas Fahndrich for showing two yellow cards. At last I approach him. Quite fast-paced, but not in an unpleasant way. Extremely polite. He made zero attempts to get the ball as I thought he was a breakaway player. When not even the skipper can speak up, things become tricky.
Both will be back on Merseyside, but they won’t play again until 20 October, when Liverpool and Chelsea meet in the Premier League.