For two ageing greats who contested an epic rivalry over years, the World Cup could provide a last duel. Not Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi – or not definitely, anyway, given the number of results required to ensure that Portugal actually do meet Argentina in the Kansas City quarter-final – but Kevin De Bruyne and Mohamed Salah.
They have met in the Community Shield, the Champions League and the Carabao Cup but theirs is primarily a Premier League battle. Now for the north-west of the United States not the north-west of England. They meet in Seattle as captains of Belgium and Egypt and arguably the Premier League’s two best players of the last decade. There are cases for Harry Kane and Virgil van Dijk, one for Erling Haaland that is based on a much briefer stay in the division, but De Bruyne and Salah allied creativity with class, assists with goals, medals with magnificence, individual exploits with collective achievement.
There is a further common denominator. Chelsea may be relieved if such stunning talents never come head to head again; it will spare them more embarrassing reminders of what they had and lost when Jose Mourinho showed a reluctance to start either. Instead, De Bruyne began just two league games for them. Salah only got two goals, compared to the double century he subsequently plundered for Liverpool. There is an alternative history whereby, regardless of Sheikh Mansour or Michael Edwards, Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp, Chelsea were England’s dominant force in the last decade; if only they had kept De Bruyne and Salah, if the Belgian’s assists were for the Egyptian.
Instead, their impact was extraordinary. Salah got 257 goals and 122 assists for Liverpool, De Bruyne 108 and 170 for City. The Belgian equalled the record for assists in a Premier League season, with 20, until Bruno Fernandes passed it this year. Salah remains joint top of the charts for goal contributions, with 47 – 29 of them his own, 18 provided for others – in his penultimate campaign at Anfield. Their teams, at different points, got 100, 99, 98 and 97 points in seasons.
Examine the reigns of two great managers and it is almost unarguable that Salah was the outstanding player of Klopp’s Liverpool and very likely that De Bruyne was the best of Guardiola’s City. Indeed, the midfielder left as probably the finest footballer in City’s history. Salah seemed to clamber his way into a podium place at Anfield, perhaps below only Kenny Dalglish and Steven Gerrard.
In a league that has sometimes been the world’s best and, for years, invariably its richest, they hoovered up the individual awards. Between them, they were named Footballer of the Year in 2018, 2022 and 2025 and PFA Player of the Year in 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2025.
The honours that eluded them came in the form of a wider recognition. Neither got close to the Ballon d’Or. Messi is a reason for that, if not Ronaldo. So, too, a relatively slight return of one Champions League apiece and, perhaps more pertinently, the way they were denied the chance to shape the occasion. Salah went off injured in his first final, De Bruyne in both of his.
Maybe, though, it is in part because coming from countries outside the traditional footballing superpowers, they lack the international silverware to support their case. Each has come close. Salah has been a runner-up in the African Cup of Nations. De Bruyne has come third in a World Cup. He has at least excelled in one; in 2018, when he was outstanding in the quarter-final win over Brazil. By 2022, De Bruyne bluntly admitted Belgium’s golden generation were in the past; his verdict, when asked about winning the World Cup was “no chance, we’re too old”. Four years later, even older, he is still there, even if Eden Hazard, Vincent Kompany, Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld are long gone.
Salah’s World Cup track record is briefer and less productive. He was hampered by a Sergio Ramos-inflicted shoulder injury in 2018. Egypt did not qualify in 2022. For him, more than De Bruyne, 2026 offers the chance to be his best World Cup, especially if he can inspire Egypt’s maiden victory on this stage.
It is to be hoped that, in what could be a final reunion, there are signs of each at his best, of Salah scurrying infield at pace, whipping a left-footed shot across the goalkeeper and De Bruyne delivering the kind of long-range pass or cross that only a handful of footballers could envision and still fewer pull off. There are points already where this World Cup has seemed the ghost of the Premier League past; now this could be a glimpse of what England’s top flight has lost.
Maybe last season was an extended illustration of that. The accusations were that the division was duller, more reliant on set-piece goals, with fewer superlative players and where the established forces found it harder to win, and win big. There are various explanations but one could be simple: De Bruyne is gone and Salah had tumbled into decline. Perhaps they were just always extraordinary anomalies who made their teams look better.
Each would have won more but for the other; perhaps now Salah’s ambitions will be frustrated by De Bruyne for a final time, or vice versa. But as careers in parallel near their end, it could get the nostalgic in Manchester and on Merseyside alike tuning in. An era has ended but the Salah-De Bruyne years were goal-filled and golden.
