Why Bayern didn't sign Mane and Salah before they ended up at Liverpool

Stefan Bienkowski

• 11 Nov 2021 12:05 CST
• 8 min read

Liverpool’s forward pairing of Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane are undoubtedly one of the best double acts in football.

Whether it be Mane’s directness on the ball or Salah’s ability to skip by any opponent, Jurgen Klopp’s team have conquered all before them thanks in no small part to this dynamic duo.

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However, Liverpool’s famous partnership was so very nearly never a thing, according to a new report in Germany, which claims that both Mane and Salah could have ended up at Bayern Munich at different points in their careers.

Why Bayern didn’t sign Mane in 2014

According to Bild, Bayern had a perfect opportunity to sign Mane when he was at RB Salzburg and before he left the club to join Southampton in 2014.

However, while Mane was undoubtedly a talented player with no less than 45 goals and 32 assists from the left wing for the Austrian club in 87 games, Bayern already had two outstanding wingers in Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben.

Add to that the fact that the summer of 2014 was when Bayern also convinced Robert Lewandowski to swap sides and make the move from Borussia Dortmund to Munich and it’s fair to say that the club had their eyes set on other prizes.

Bayern did end up buying a winger one year later in the form of Douglas Costa, but the Brazilian was undoubtedly a back-up option to the aforementioned Ribery and Robben, which was likely a role that Mane would have struggled to occupy as he had ambitions of perhaps doing so much more with his career.

Why Bayern didn’t sign Salah between 2015 and 2017

While it may be hard to imagine now, Salah was by no means the world-beating forward that he is today, when Bayern were reportedly interested in potentially signing the Egypt international.

Per Bild’s reporting, Bayern had the opportunity to sign Salah between 2015 and 2017, which is essentially when the player was playing in Italy for Roma as more of a right winger, rather than the more direct role he plays for Liverpool now.

Like Mane’s situation, Bayern weren’t really in the market for a starting winger at the time and there was certainly no desire to spend a huge amount of money on a striker, when Bayern had already bagged LEwandowski in 2014.

Perhaps Salah would have been a fine addition to the club, but Bayern often stress caution over spending fortunes on unproven players in the transfer market and there was no way they were going to spend the £37m Liverpool forked over for Salah in 2017.