By Aaron Hammond 
Football fans can sometimes shock you with the levels of love they show to their favourite players on the pitch.
When Egyptian superstar Mohamed Salah decided to take a quiet stroll in Turkey, he never knew he was making history.
He visited the scenic Kürtdere plateau near the city of Trabzon to enjoy some fresh air away from football.
During his walk, he sat down on a random rock to rest his legs and took a quick photo to share online.
That harmless picture sparked massive madness across Turkish social media platforms within a matter of hours.
Fans queuing up to copy a simple sitting pose
As soon as the picture dropped online, supporters started searching high and low for that exact boulder in the mountains.
Before long, people began travelling from different towns just to locate the stone and sit exactly where Salah sat.
Videos circulating online show long queues of excited fans waiting patiently for their turn to strike the same pose.
Some locals quickly gave the stone a brand new nickname known as Salahtası, which simply means Salah rock in Turkish.
Smart content creators even mounted directional signs nearby to guide confused tourists straight to the famous landmark.
It is funny how a man who scores heavy goals on the pitch can score a tourist site just by resting.
Translating pitch brilliance into total societal takeover
This amusing stone craze did not happen by mistake because the forward has been doing wonders on the green grass.
After leaving Liverpool to join Trabzonspor, he has settled down quickly by banging in crucial goals for his new club.
He recently hammered a sweet hat trick and provided an assist to help his team trash Galatasaray four goals to zero.
That masterclass performance pushed his tally to seven goals from his first six league appearances in the Turkish top flight.
When a player is carrying a club on his back like that, fans will naturally worship practically anything he touches.
Why the Turkish football culture hits differently
Turkish football lovers are well known for expressing their extreme passions in ways that leave many people smiling or confused.
Turning a ordinary boulder into a recognized sightseeing spot proves that celebrity worship in the country has reached legendary levels.
Shop owners near the plateau are already granting interviews, jokingly inviting the winger over for a hot cup of tea.
Even though some critics on social media think the whole stone pilgrimage is totally hilarious, the fans do not care at all.
They are too busy snapping pictures and posting them to feed the trending algorithms across the global internet space.
Football remains a powerful language that unites people and turns ordinary objects into priceless treasures overnight.
Mohamed Salah went to Turkey purely for football business, but he is currently running the tourism sector by accident.
As long as he keeps putting the ball at the back of the net, that mountain rock will keep attracting massive crowds. Who knows, the local municipality might soon build a golden canopy over the stone to protect it from harsh weather.
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