Mohamed Salah made history for Liverpool as Jurgen Klopp's side thrashed Sparta Prague 6-1 on Thursday to advance to the Europa League quarter-finals 11-2 on aggregate.
After winning 5-1 in the first leg of the round of 16 in Prague, Liverpool scored four goals in the first 14 minutes at Anfield, while Sparta had no answer to the high pressure of the home team.
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Salah took the ball on the right side of the box before firing a shot past Sparta goalkeeper Peter Vindahl Jensen at the far post for his 20th goal of the season, becoming the first Liverpool player to score at least 20 goals in seven seasons. consecutive.
The Egyptian star also provided three assists to make this the sixth season of his career with 20 goals and 10 assists in all competitions. Lionel Messi (13), Luis Suárez (9) and Cristiano Ronaldo (9) are the only male players with the most seasons of this type in the 21st century.
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Salah, who injured his hamstring with Egypt at the African Cup of Nations in January, started after being used as a substitute in both the first leg in Prague and the 1-1 draw against Manchester City on Sunday.
“It was up to us to decide how good the match would be and obviously we enjoyed playing football, and we also scored some fantastic goals early on,” Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp told TNT Sports. “From that moment on it becomes a difficult game, how are you going to move forward?”
Darwin Núñez opened the rout with a clinical low shot seven minutes into the game after scoring two in Prague.
A minute later, Salah won the ball on the edge of the area to feed 19-year-old Bobby Clark and score his first senior goal to put Liverpool 2-0 up.
Salah then scored before finding Cody Gakpo with a cross to make it 4-0.
Dominik Szoboszlai made it 5-1 in the second half with a deflected shot before Gakpo added the second.
Veljko Birmancevic scored Sparta's only goal.
Information from The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
