The next time the ball came to him, in the 83rd minute, he didn’t hesitate.
He received the pass, and just as the Palace left-back, Tyrick Mitchell, prepared to show him down the line, Salah did the exact opposite. He cut inside with a single, explosive, devastating touch.
The defender, completely wrong-footed, was left stumbling, grasping at thin air.
Salah was in. He drove at the heart of the defense, creating pure, unadulterated panic.
He unleashed a furious shot that was parried away by the keeper.
The chance was gone, but the seed was planted. The cheat code had been activated.
"A MOMENT OF GENIUS FROM SALAH!" the commentator roared. "He cut inside with a speed and a conviction that completely bamboozled the defense! Where did that come from?!"
Two minutes later, they did it again. Salah got the ball, cut inside, and this time he was brought down, winning a dangerous free-kick.
The pressure was building. Anfield was a roaring, trembling cauldron of noise, sensing that a goal was coming.
In the 88th minute, the dam finally broke.
A cross was cleared, but only to the feet of Trent Alexander-Arnold.
He fired a low, driven shot from the edge of the box.
It wasn’t his best effort, a scuffed, bobbling ball that was heading straight for the Palace goalkeeper. It should have been the easiest, most routine save of the match.
But the keeper, who had been under a relentless siege for the last ten minutes, made a fatal error. He took his eye off the ball for a split second, already thinking about his distribution.
The ball, skidding on the wet grass, hit his gloves and squirted out, a bar of soap in a rainstorm.
It was a catastrophic goalkeeper mistake.
The ball was loose, rolling agonizingly in the six-yard box. And reacting first, a predator smelling blood, was Alexander Isak. "The Hammer" was there to do what he did best.
He smashed the loose ball into the roof of the net with a ferocious, unstoppable power.
An atomic bomb of pure, cathartic relief and joy.
Isak roared, sliding on his knees towards the corner flag, the entire team burying him in a pile of red shirts. They had done it. They had found the winner.
But the football gods are cruel, and they love a dramatic final act.
Liverpool, high on adrenaline, tried to see out the final minutes.
But Crystal Palace, with nothing to lose, threw everyone forward for one last, desperate attack.
In the 94th minute, the final minute of stoppage time, they won a corner.
The Palace goalkeeper sprinted the length of the pitch, a giant, green-shirted attacker joining the fray. It was their last, hopeless prayer.
The ball was whipped in, a perfect, dangerous delivery into the heart of the box. And rising above everyone, a towering, unstoppable force of pure, desperate will, was their giant Danish defender, Joachim Andersen.
He met the ball with a corner goal header of such pure, devastating power that Alisson had no chance.
The ball flew into the net. 3-3.
The tiny pocket of away fans went berserk.
The rest of Anfield was plunged into a dead, horrified, and utterly devastating silence.
The referee blew the final whistle. It was over. A 3-3 draw.
The Liverpool players collapsed to the grass, their faces a picture of utter disbelief.
They had been seconds away from a glorious, hard-fought victory on the opening day, and it had been snatched away from them at the very last moment.
They did a slow, somber lap of the pitch, applauding the fans who, to their credit, were singing "You’ll Never Walk Alone" with a defiant, heartbreaking pride.
As Leon was walking towards the tunnel, his mind a numb, buzzing mess of what-ifs, a hand clapped him on the shoulder. It was Mo Salah.
The Egyptian King wasn’t angry. He wasn’t disappointed. He just had a strange, intense, and deeply curious look in his eyes.
They walked in silence for a few paces, the roar of the crowd fading behind them, the cool, quiet of the concrete tunnel enveloping them.
"That move," Salah said finally, his voice a low, serious murmur. "The one where I cut inside. All my instincts, my entire career, I was going to go down the line. It was the obvious play."
He stopped, turning to face Leon fully.
"But then... I heard a voice," he said, his eyes searching Leon’s, looking for an answer to a question he didn’t understand. "In my head. It was calm. It was clear. It told me to go inside. That the space was there."
He paused, a beat of pure, profound, and world-altering silence hanging between the two superstars.
"That was you, wasn’t it?" ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝✦𝘧𝙞𝙧𝙚✦𝕟𝕖𝕥
Leon’s heart was hammering in his chest, a frantic rhythm that had nothing to do with the ninety minutes of football he had just played.
It was the result of the single, impossible question that now hung in the air between him and the King of Anfield.
That was you, wasn’t it?
Leon looked into Mo Salah’s eyes. They weren’t angry or accusatory. They were sharp, intelligent, and filled with a deep, profound curiosity. He couldn’t lie. But he couldn’t possibly tell the full truth.
"I... I don’t know how," Leon began, his voice barely a whisper, the words feeling clumsy and inadequate. "I saw the space. I saw the defender was going to show you the line. It was a trap. I just... I had this feeling, this instinct, and I focused everything I had on trying to... send it to you. The idea. To cut inside."
Salah just stared at him, his expression unreadable. For a long, terrifying moment, Leon was sure the Egyptian was going to call him crazy, report him to the club psychologist, or just laugh in his face.
Instead, a slow, brilliant, and slightly unnerving grin spread across Salah’s face.
"A feeling," he repeated, a low chuckle in his voice.
"The new boy has ’a feeling’." He shook his head, a look of pure, unadulterated awe in his eyes. "I have played with some of the greatest midfielders in the world. They see passes. You... you see the entire game."
He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I don’t know how you did it. And to be honest, I don’t care."
He clapped Leon once, hard, on the shoulder, a gesture of partnership, of a new, secret alliance. "Just... do it again."
And with that, he turned and jogged towards the dressing room, leaving Leon standing there, his mind a complete, buzzing whirlwind.
The dressing room was a strange, complicated place. It wasn’t the jubilant chaos of a win, nor the somber morgue of a defeat. It was the frustrated, buzzing energy of a draw that felt like a loss.
"I can’t believe it," Andy Robertson was saying to a nearby Trent Alexander-Arnold, shaking his head as he pulled off his boots.
"We dominate for thirty minutes, look like world-beaters, and we still can’t hold on. That final corner... criminal."
"Tell me about it," Trent grumbled. "You’d think after all these years, we’d learn how to defend a simple set piece."
"It was a good header," Virgil van Dijk said, his captain’s voice a calm, authoritative presence in the room. "We lose focus for one second, and in this league, you are punished. It is a lesson. We will learn it."