Salah and De Bruyne's World Cup duel exposes what the Premier League has lost

Mohamed Salah and Kevin De Bruyne renew one of the Premier League era’s defining rivalries at the 2026 World Cup, leading Egypt and Belgium respectively in a Group G opener in Seattle — a fixture that doubles as a reminder of what English football built around two players it very nearly discarded.

The pair’s shared history runs through the Community Shield, the Champions League and the Carabao Cup, but their rivalry was forged above all in the Premier League. Salah accumulated 257 goals and 122 assists for Liverpool; De Bruyne contributed 108 goals and 170 assists for Manchester City. Their teams, at different points, recorded season tallies of 100, 99, 98 and 97 points. Between them they were named Footballer of the Year in 2018, 2022 and 2025, and De Bruyne held the record for assists in a single Premier League season — 20 — until Bruno Fernandes surpassed it this year.

The irony is that Chelsea had both men and let them go. De Bruyne started just two league games under José Mourinho. Salah managed only two goals before departing, compared to the double century he subsequently plundered at Anfield. There is an alternative history, the article argues, in which Chelsea rather than City or Liverpool dominated English football across the last decade — if only they had kept both.

The cases for other contenders — Harry Kane, Virgil van Dijk, Erling Haaland — are real but qualified. Haaland’s claim rests on a shorter tenure; Kane and Van Dijk never quite married creativity and goals in the same way. De Bruyne and Salah, the argument runs, allied assists with goals, individual brilliance with collective achievement across sustained periods at the very top.

Look at the tenures of Jürgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola and it is almost unarguable that Salah was the outstanding player of Klopp’s Liverpool, and very likely that De Bruyne was the finest of Guardiola’s City — leaving as perhaps the greatest player in the club’s history. Salah, for his part, appears to sit just below Kenny Dalglish and Steven Gerrard in Anfield’s unofficial pantheon.

Now, in Seattle, they meet as captains and as two of the last survivors of a particular golden age in English football — one that may not be replicated soon. The World Cup stage is different, the stakes national rather than club, but the dynamic is familiar: two ageing greats, one more duel, and a Premier League watching on knowing it shaped both of them.