Following Egypt’s historic 3-1 victory against New Zealand on Sunday night at BC Place, Egyptian soccer star Mohamed Salah was found celebrating with fans in the streets of Vancouver.
Videos posted to X from a Salah fan account showed the 34-year-old striker, as well as other members of the Egyptian team, dancing and cheering outside the team’s hotel near the Burrard Street SkyTrain station with a large contingent of Egyptian fans.
The celebrations continued long into the night, with fans and team members singing in the streets with Salah in the centre of it all, seen holding a speaker over his head and also being held up on a teammate’s shoulders.
Salah, lovingly known as the “Egyptian King,” scored the winning goal in the 67th minute, helping Egypt secure its first ever win at a World Cup in the country’s fourth time competing at the tournament.
“It’s a great feeling for all of us, it’s a great achievement,” said Salah in a post-match interview. “We just do our best in the tournament to make the people happy in Egypt and I think they are right now.”
It was Salah’s third goal at a World Cup, making him Egypt’s all-time leading scorer for the tournament.
His 68 total goals for Egypt put him just one behind Hossam Hassan, the team’s current manager, for the all-time goal-scoring lead for his country.
Salah is not only a legend in Egypt, but also in England, where he spent the past 10 seasons with Liverpool of the English Premier League, scoring 257 goals in 442 appearances across all competitions for the iconic English club.
Egypt will now travel south of the border to face Iran in its final group stage match on Friday evening in Seattle.
“Now we are top of the group and we just need to celebrate today and tomorrow with the win, and then just focus on the last game,” said Salah.
With a win, Egypt would secure a Group G victory.
The other Group G match will be contested between New Zealand and Belgium at the exact same time, at BC Place.
It’s the second of two World Cup matches taking place at BC Place this week, the first being Canada’s final group stage match against Switzerland on Wednesday afternoon.
