Colombian prepared Salah to be among the best in the world

The first thing Jaime Pabón noticed was Mohamed Salah, 29, breathing. The forward was rushing into the area and looking impatient before submitting. Then he analyzed their positions on the field. The Egyptian didn’t make the fastest route to the goal.

One of the deadliest and most prolific top scorers in world football today, Salah has had trouble scoring goals in the past. That’s when Pabon appeared. The former Colombian point guard started working with the then Roma player at the end of 2016.

“It was easy to see that his talent was exceptional. It was something that came naturally to him. But there were aspects of his game that could be improved. That’s why we worked together,” explains the 54-year-old coach, runner-up at the 1995 Libertadores with Atlético Nacional in the final lost to Grêmio.

Pabón moved to Rome at the end of 2016 and began working with Salah on individual activities three or four times a week. Watched hours of videos of the attacker in matches. He set up specific training for aspects in which he believed there could be an evolution in the athlete’s performance.

The Colombian does not want to take credit for the growth of the Egyptian. He claims that the greatest of them was the striker’s commitment and his natural talent. But the numbers show a shift.

In the 2015/2016 season, the last before the start of work with his private coach, Salah scored 15 goals in 42 games (average of 0.35). In the 2017/2018, the first complete after having Pabón at his side, there were 44 in 52 matches (0.84), already for Liverpool.

For years, he was seen as a good African football talent, but nothing spectacular. Hired by Chelsea in 2014, it did not work in its passage through the United Kingdom and was loaned to Fiorentina and Roma (who would later buy it).

Upon his arrival in Liverpool, he exploded. He was third in the 2018 FIFA World Cup election and is one of 11 finalists in the current season’s election. The winner will be announced on January 17th. He was also the main name of the English team in 2020, when the club broke a 30-year fast without being national champions.

“If I were told to pick any player as the best on the planet, it would be Salah,” said forward Alan Shearer, the top scorer in the history of the Premier League, the modern version of the Premier League, which began in 1992.

Pabón and Salah’s paths crossed thanks to Francisco Maturana, the person responsible for running Colombia in the 1990 and 1994 World Cups. While working in Saudi Arabia, he met Salah’s manager, Remy Abbas Issa. At a dinner, the agent commented that his client had enormous potential to be exploited, but he needed someone to improve him.

Maturana recommended Pabón, who had been his athlete at Atlético Nacional and had specialized in custom work for strikers. Salah agreed to dive into the recommendations of his new trainer.

“When I was facing the goalkeeper, Salah was rushed. We also did breathing exercises to improve that”, explains the Colombian.

“He was rushing to submit, he didn’t wait for the right moment. The speed with which he entered the area was the same as he submitted. It didn’t reduce it. We built work so that he could understand the best angle to hinder the goalkeeper’s defense”, he adds .

Pabón worries about explanations. He doesn’t want to give the image that he taught Mohamed Salah to score goals. It’s not about this. It just means that everyone can improve in football if they do specific activities. There is always room to evolve.

More important than seeing where he could improve was convincing him of the need. The Colombian thought that there could be an ego problem, but that never happened, he assures.

“Salah is a boy who lives for football. I never had any problem with him. He always accepted everything we talked about very well. We did a detailed analysis of his position on the field, the distances he covered, the moment to finish the goal. .. Statistics showed the ideal position to receive passes in better conditions to score”, he explains.

The experience with the Egyptian made the trainer start working with strikers from other teams in Colombia and in South American countries. He did similar work with Santos Borré, 2018 Libertadores champion with River Plate and now at Eintracht Frankfurt.

The Colombian trainer realized that work with Salah was done when he moved to Liverpool in 2017. They decided to split early the following year. In his opinion, it was the ideal club, with the best coach (German Jurgen Klopp) and at the perfect moment in the forward’s career.

The impression that all the pieces fit was confirmed, and Mohamed Salah could be voted best in the world next month.