Liverpool attacker Mohamed Salah was omitted from the Egypt’s Olympic Games squad, the Egyptian Football Federation (EFA) announced.

It has been widely reported the Reds had refused to release Salah and Galatasaray had also done so for Mostafa Mohamed for the tournament between July 21-Aug. 7.

The 22-man squad, named by under 23 coach Shawky Gharib on Friday, included Al Ahly goalkeeper Mohamed El-Shennawy, Ittihad’s Ahmed Hegazy and Zamalek’s Mahmoud al-Wensh.

The Turkish club are taking part in July’s Champions league play-offs against PSV Eindhoven.

The Pharaohs qualified for Tokyo’s Games after their U-23 AFCON triumph in 2019.

They are in Group C, playing alongside Argentina, Spain, and Australia.

Meanwhile, the clash of the Olympics with the start of the European season makes it hard for teams to often take their best players. So, Japan will be without its biggest star. Forward Takumi Minamino is with Liverpool trying with Egyptian team-mate Salah to regain the Premier League title.

The Egyptians are in a group with Spain, Australia and Argentina. The Olympics is the only major title Lionel Messi has won with Argentina, at the 2008 Beijing Games.

But the out-of-contract Barcelona forward is not one of the three permitted overage players in the Argentina squad at a time when he looks to resolve his club future and has been involved in the Copa America in this offseason.

France will be looking to become dual Olympic and world champions. While Florian Thauvin has a World Cup winner’s medal from 2018, the winger will be hoping to appear in Japan for more than the one minute he played in Russia.

He only came on at the World Cup in one game as a late substitute for Kylian Mbappé.

Even though the Paris Saint-Germain star failed to score in June as France exited the European Championship in the round of 16, he won’t get a chance to quickly make amends given his absence from the Olympic squad. The one country where clubs have to release players for the Olympics is Spain. That means six men from its Euro 2020 team will get a chance to deliver Spain’s first soccer gold since 1992, including senior national team starting goalkeeper Unai Simón.

Agencies