Why is Mohamed Salah not at the World Cup?

It doesn't get much better than the World Cup for the casual football fan.

It's the best teams in the world. It's the best players in the world. It's matches around the clock. Simply put, it's pure joy.

Lionel Messi is there. So is Cristiano Ronaldo. And Neymar. Kylian Mbappe. The list of superstars is endless.

But there are some massive absentees as well - and Mohamed Salah is arguably the biggest one of them all.

The Liverpool star is undoubtedly one of the best players around in the game and has been making headlines at a regular interval ever since his move to Anfield in 2017.

It's awfully quiet around the Egyptian King this time of the year, though.

And there's a very simple reason for it.

Salah is, in fact, not at the World Cup as Egypt failed to qualify for the tournament.

Only 32 countries have qualified for the showpiece in Qatar this November and December and that means that some of the nations you'd expect to be there miss out.

In this case, Egypt failed to qualify for the World Cup 2022 after Senegal proved to be too strong in a dramatic qualification play-off.

The failure to qualify comes as a massive blow to Salah and his team-mates as they were desperate to show the nation what they can do at the highest level after a disappointing World Cup 2018 campaign, in which they ended last in their group with zero points from three games.

So does that mean Salah will never play at the World Cup again? Or could he still be around come 2026?

Well, the prolific attacker did turn 30 earlier this year and will be approaching 34 by the time the next edition gets underway.

That doesn't necessarily mean he will be too old, though. Just look at Messi and Ronaldo, who are both well in their 30s and still going strong.

For now, we will have to make do with Liverpool's iconic forward at the World Cup, though.