AFP, Milan :
Edin Dzeko will take to the San Siro pitch with old friend Mohamed Salah when Inter Milan take on Liverpool in the Champions League last 16 today, a reminder of the havoc the pair used to cause together at Roma.
After an anonymous time at Chelsea and signs of promise at Fiorentina, Salah’s career really started to take off after arriving in the Italian capital in 2015.
Once firmly established as strike partners under Luciano Spalletti, Dzeko and Salah hit it off in a big way, scoring 58 goals in all competitions in 2016-17 and helping Roma to second in Serie A as an ageing Francesco Totti was shunted aside.
Salah’s inconsistent but at times unstoppable performances earned him a move to Merseyside, where under Jurgen Klopp he quickly became one of the world’s best, for what now looks a paltry 50 million euros (at the time £43 million). “I must say, in some little way, I helped Momo become what he is now,” Dzeko said in an interview published by the Daily Mail last week.
“We had a great time together in Rome… I’m so happy for him, a great guy who deserves everything he has achieved.”
Dzeko looks a player reborn since making the move north from Roma in the summer, and has been such a hit with Inter fans that they have largely forgotten Romelu Lukaku, the key man behind last season’s league triumph.
Lukaku’s now infamous interview with Sky Sport Italia was met with little more than shrugged shoulders from Inter fans. Less prolific than Lukaku, Dzeko has nonetheless scored 14 goals in all competitions and often pops up when it matters.
His equaliser in Saturday’s pulsating title clash at Napoli ensured that Inter, a point behind new leaders AC Milan but with game in hand, still hold the advantage in the race for the league crown despite almost being blown away in the first half at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.
It was his double against Shakhtar Donetsk which effectively secured Inter’s place in the last 16 with a game to spare, taking Inter into the knockouts for the first time in a decade.
Dzeko said he didn’t expect to move when Jose Mourinho took over at Roma, and it was a transfer which was greeted with some scepticism in Milan after a poor final season at Roma which also included a public spat with former coach Paulo Fonseca.
However he has added a new dimension to Inter’s play under Simone Inzaghi, who like Dzeko spent the summer with fans in open revolt at the sale of Lukaku and Achraf Hakimi but has improved on what Antonio Conte’s Lukaku-centric iteration served up.
