Perhaps the fullest realisation of what Mohamed Salah has achieved at Liverpool will only come with time.
But as he prepares to say his goodbyes on Sunday, there is plenty to appreciate and admire in the here and now.
There are the standards Salah helped to set that emanated through the club in his and Liverpool‘s quest for greatness.
Then there are the records he broke and the trophies his goals brought to Anfield.
Above all, there is the sheer joy he brought and the memories he provided.
“He [Salah] set completely new standards for a professional football player – how hard you can work, how much you can invest in recovery and everything,” Jurgen Klopp told BBC Sport in March.
Klopp was the manager when Liverpool signed the Egyptian from Roma in 2017 for £34m.
The deal was questioned because of Salah’s previous struggles with Chelsea in the Premier League, but those who scouted him for Liverpool were convinced.
Yet even they – the scouts, Klopp, everyone involved – could not have anticipated how Salah would become an all-time great.
His haul of 257 goals for Liverpool has pushed him past the likes of Sir Kenny Dalglish, Robbie Fowler, Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard. Only Ian Rush (346) and Roger Hunt (285) have scored more.
“Mohamed knew what he had to do to become a Liverpool legend and he took it to a different level,” Rush told BBC Sport.
“He couldn’t believe how many goals I scored. so he actually said to me: ‘Did you count your goals in training?’
“So he’s got that Scouse sense of humour as well. But it’s not just goals; you look at the number of assists and he’s a complete footballer.”
For the record, there have been 119 assists.
Salah’s average of a goal or an assist every 94 minutes for Liverpool is astonishing. That’s 376 goal involvements in 35,326 minutes of football.
These are remarkable feats by the man who began his journey in Nagrig, a village in rural Egypt, and became one of the greatest players for one of the world’s greatest football clubs.
Salah sat on a throne inside Anfield last year – the club’s ‘Egyptian king’ had committed to extending his reign and marked the occasion in regal style. But now his abdication moment has arrived, a year earlier than planned.
It is not clear for which club or in which country Salah will play next season.
Brentford at home marks the final page in the defining chapter of his footballing life. What a life.
The self-aware Salah appreciates his superstar status, and revels in what he stands for in both the footballing world and the Arabic world.
But he also knows how hard he has worked to reach that status.
