On 23 June 2017, Liverpool confirmed the $42m (£34m/€39m) signing of Mohamed Salah from Roma.
Just six weeks later, Paris Saint-Germain shelled out a world-record $247m (£200m/€228m) to prise Neymar away from Barcelona.
For different reasons, these were two of the most significant transfers of the modern era. The first propelled Liverpool to the very top, and the second reshaped the market forever.
But how do the two players compare over the near-six-year period since their respective moves?
First things first, Salah has scored far more goals outright, and provided roughly the same number of assists. Now, a fairer way to look at things would be to divide the total goal contributions by number of appearances, and that does give Neymar a clear edge.
He’s scoring or assisting 1.13 goals per match on average, while Salah sits at 0.86, still a magnificent figure but considerably below Neymar.
This, though, is where the context of the two leagues becomes important. The reality is that Salah is playing in a far more difficult division than the Brazilian.
And this isn’t just typical Premier League snobbery. It all comes down to the gulf in resources, with English top-flight clubs levels above in their spending and thus the quality of their squads.
*Also includes Club World Cup
**As per Transfermarkt
As per Transfermarkt, the combined cost of all 20 Premier League squads stands at nearly $8.7bn ($7bn/€8bn), around four times more than the cumulative price of the French rosters. The Qatari-owned PSG alone, at $756m (£616m/€700m), is responsible for roughly 35 per cent of that figure.
Likewise, when it comes to trophies, you have to consider the scale of PSG’s domestic dominance. Les Parisiens have won the title in four of Neymar’s five seasons, but what’s really telling is the average margin — 14 points, a figure that would be even higher if the 19/20 schedule had been played to its conclusion rather than prematurely halted because of the pandemic, with PSG 12 points clear.
Currently seven points ahead of Marseille at the top, PSG is now poised to make it five out of six. Given the wealth disparity between the leader and the rest of the field, it’s hard to call it a genuinely competitive sport.
By contrast, while Liverpool has finished in the top two in three of Salah’s five completed campaigns and often held a big advantage over the rest of the pack, it is up against arguably the greatest Premier League side ever in Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, denying Salah the honors he would have won easily in any other era.
And crucially, the Egyptian has helped deliver the Champions League for Liverpool, while Neymar and PSG have repeatedly failed in Europe. Surely, when it made the earth-shattering signing, winning the greatest prize in club football was its primary objective.
Part of the reason the trophy has eluded PSG is perhaps Neymar’s persistent absences. Indeed, the disparity between the appearance figures is truly staggering.
PSG has, for reference, paid $1.5m (£1.2m/€1.4m) per appearance, just going by the transfer fee, while Liverpool has paid a mere $148k (£120k/€136k).
While you wouldn’t necessarily blame Neymar for missing so much action, his severely limited availability can’t be separated from the ultimate verdict on the transfer.
Salah has been almost bulletproof at Anfield, while his counterpart in Paris has missed the equivalent of three full Ligue 1 seasons, and then some.
The fee for Salah stands at a mere 17.5 per cent of PSG’s outlay for Neymar and, even if we’re not pronouncing a judgment on who’s the better player, there’s surely no question who’s the better signing. In fact, it shouldn’t even be considered close.
Through the lens of the biggest deal in the game’s history, then, you can find another way to appreciate just how good a piece of business this was from Liverpool.