Egypt’s Mohamed Salah left it late to hand his team victory against Tunisia in their Africa Cup of Nations qualifier, before responding perfectly to a girl in the crowd who implored him to score early as she had “homework to do.”
Prolific Liverpool striker Salah struck in the 90th minute in Alexandria, his 39th goal in national team colors.
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It was a late twist that one girl was hoping could have come a lot earlier however, as she asked Salah from the stands to net earlier as she needed to get home to do her homework.
An image shared on Twitter showed the girl holding up her message, which read: “Salah please score. I want to go home. I have homework.”
The snap was picked up on by the star striker after the game, who apologized for leaving it quite so late to get on the scoresheet for the Pharaohs.
“I really tried to let you go home early, and sorry to have kept you here until the last minute. I hope your teacher tomorrow understands the situation,” the 26-year-old replied.
Both Egypt and Tunisia had already qualified for the continental showpiece before Friday’s game, although Salah’s team have now joined their rivals on 12 points at the top of Group J.
They round off their qualification campaign against Niger in March of next year, while Salah heads back to Premier League duty with Liverpool in the meantime.