For one Saturday in October 2002, Salif Diao was the man who put Liverpool top of the league. His goal at Elland Road beat Leeds, a 16-year-old Wayne Rooney scored Everton’s winner against Arsenal later that afternoon, and Gérard Houllier’s side went to the summit of the Premiership.
It turned out to be the high point of his Liverpool career. He never quite convinced at Anfield, and within a couple of years he was out on loan. But he gave everything he had, and he went on to become a much-loved figure at Stoke.
From Kédougou to Monaco
Diao was born in Kédougou, in Senegal, on 10 February 1977. He came through at Monaco, but in a strong squad he struggled to get a regular game.
In 2000 he moved to Sedan, and there he finally got a run of games in the French top flight. He was a defensive midfielder through and through. In all his league games in France he never scored a goal.
A summer to remember
2002 was the year Senegal announced themselves. In February they reached the final of the Africa Cup of Nations, losing to Cameroon on penalties. In the summer they went to their first World Cup, and in the opening game they beat France, the holders.
Diao’s big moment came against Denmark in Daegu. Having given away a penalty in the first half, he equalised with the finish to a breathtaking move that swept the length of the pitch. With ten minutes left he was sent off. He missed the last group game against Uruguay and the last-16 tie with Sweden, but he was back in the side for the quarter-final against Turkey, where Senegal’s run came to an end.
Signed with Diouf
Houllier had seen enough. Diao joined Liverpool in August 2002, arriving alongside his Senegal teammate El Hadji Diouf after the World Cup.
He settled in quicker than most of that summer’s signings. He was a tough, honest player who wore his heart on his sleeve, and Houllier used him plenty. He made 40 appearances in his first season, roughly half of them from the bench.
Off the mark against Spartak
His first goal came on 2 October 2002, when Spartak Moscow were thrashed 5-0 at Anfield in the Champions League. Diao came on for Steven Gerrard and, with nine minutes left, headed in Emile Heskey’s cross to make it 4-0.
For a midfielder who had never scored in the league in France, it was quite a novelty. And there was better to come.
Top of the league
Seventeen days later Liverpool went to Elland Road. On 66 minutes, with the game still goalless, Dietmar Hamann threaded a pass through to Diouf, and when his cross came in from the left, Diao nipped in to flick the ball past Paul Robinson.
It was his first Premiership goal, it won the game 1-0, and with Arsenal losing at Goodison the same day, Liverpool went top. Diao had played well, too, forming an effective partnership with Hamann in the middle of the park.
The slide
Liverpool could not keep it going. Houllier’s side fell away badly that season and finished well short of the previous year’s second place.
Diao played four times on the way to the League Cup final in 2003, including the first leg of the semi-final at Sheffield United, but he was not in the squad in Cardiff when Liverpool beat Manchester United 2-0. The following season he made just seven appearances.
A goal at The Den
When Rafa Benítez arrived in the summer of 2004, Diao got another chance, and he played 14 times in the first half of the season.
On 26 October 2004 he scored his third and last goal for the club. Benítez sent a second-string side to Millwall in the League Cup, and after 18 minutes, when a corner was only half-cleared, Diao was on hand to finish. Milan Baroš added two more and Liverpool won 3-0, on the road that would lead all the way to the final.
He also played a small part in the Champions League campaign that ended in Istanbul, replacing Hamann for the last eight minutes of the group game against Olympiacos in Greece.
Out on loan
His last game for Liverpool was a win at Norwich on 3 January 2005. Later that month he went on loan to Birmingham, but injury cut his spell there short, and a season-long loan at Portsmouth in 2005-06 was also badly hit by injuries.
In total he played 61 times for Liverpool and scored three goals.
A Stoke favourite
In October 2006 Diao joined Stoke City on loan, and in December 2007 he signed for them permanently. That season Tony Pulis’s side won promotion to the Premier League.
On 20 February 2010 he popped up with a stoppage-time winner as Stoke won 2-1 at Fratton Park, his first top-flight goal in England since that day at Elland Road more than seven years earlier. Pulis admitted he could hardly believe it. “I didn’t know he’d scored the goal until I got back in the dressing room,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it, I’ll have to watch it on television to believe it.”
A year later Diao was on the bench at Wembley when Stoke reached the FA Cup final, which they lost 1-0 to Manchester City. He left Stoke in 2012, turning down the offer of a coaching role.
Giving something back
Diao won 39 caps for Senegal and scored four goals. Away from the pitch he set up a foundation, Sport 4 Charity, which uses football to keep young people in Senegal in school, and he has kept up his links with Liverpool.
Once a Red
Salif Diao will never be remembered as one of Liverpool’s great midfielders. He arrived in a summer of big hopes that didn’t come off, and he was out of the side within two years.
But he never hid, and for one October weekend he was the man who sent Liverpool top of the league. Not a bad thing to have on your CV.
