But his actions opened up that possibility, and Ramos' history of rough and devious play was bound to arouse suspicion.

After the match, Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp said the injury to his talismanic striker "did not look good".

However, on Saturday, the Egyptian FA posted on Twitter that it was "optimistic" Salah would recover in time to travel to Russia.

And Salah posted on Sunday: "It was a very tough night, but I'm a fighter. Despite the odds, I'm confident that I'll be in Russia to make you all proud. Your love and support will give me the strength I need."

Klopp likened Ramos' challenge on Salah to a wrestling move but stopped short of saying the Spaniard had meant to hurt his player.

"I know if you say something like that after a game you lost, it sounds like you are a little bit a bad loser but it was, for me, kind of a harsh challenge," Klopp said.

"It's like wrestling a little bit and it's unlucky then that Mo fell on his shoulder."

Former Egypt striker Mido was more scathing of Ramos.

"Anyone that understands football would know that Ramos injured Salah intentionally. Any player in the world would've released his arm but Ramos held onto his arm and spun with it," Mido tweeted.

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Former Manchester United and England centre-back Rio Ferdinand absolved Ramos of blame, saying on BT Sport: "I would say I thought it was very good defending from Ramos and I don't really think he meant to do that."

Ramos was not asked by reporters about the incident but he later sent the Egyptian forward a message on Twitter, writing: "Sometimes football shows you its good side and other times the bad. Above all, we are fellow pros."

Early in the second half, Ramos appeared to strike Liverpool goalkeeper Loris Karius on the head with his elbow.

The German continued playing but later committed two catastrophic errors, one to allow Karim Benzema to open the scoring, the second for Gareth Bale to strike Real's third goal which effectively ended the game as a contest.

Reuters; Telegraph, London