Darwin Nunez breaks silence after Liverpool star’s goalscoring tribute to Diogo Jota

Darwin Nunez replicated two of Diogo Jota’s celebrations after scoring in Liverpool’s pre-season friendly against Preston North End in a touching tribute to the Portugal international

Darwin Nunez has shared an emotional tribute to Diogo Jota after emulating two of his celebrations in Liverpool’s pre-season friendly against Preston North End. Jota and his brother Andre were killed in a car crash on July 3 and the game was Liverpool’s first since the tragedy.

A minute’s silence was observed ahead of the match and both teams wore black armbands in honour of the brothers. Liverpool ended up winning 3-1 thanks to goals from Conor Bradley, Nunez and Cody Gakpo, while Liam Lindsay was on target for Preston.

And Nunez replicated Jota’s Baby Shark celebration and gamer pose after his goal, later sharing the photos on social media with the caption: “I know today you celebrated with me like that time”.

Along with the photos of his celebrations against Preston, Nunez included one of him celebrating with Jota while he does the gamer pose during Liverpool’s 4-3 win over Tottenham in 2023.

Liverpool have also retired Jota’s number 20 shirt, while manager Arne Slot shared some touching words ahead of the game. “Nothing seems to be important if we think of what has happened,” he said.

READ MORE: Liverpool players fight back tears during touching Diogo Jota moment with supportersREAD MORE: Andy Robertson unable to face Diogo Jota tribute as Liverpool star breaks down in tears

“But we are a football club and we need to train and we need to play again, if we want it or not. What I’ve said to the players, I can say it here as well. It’s very difficult to find the right words because we constantly debate what is appropriate.

“What is appropriate in our actions? What is appropriate [for] what we have to say? Can we train again? Can we laugh again? Can we be angry if there’s a wrong decision? And I’ve said to them, maybe the best thing for us to do is handle this situation like Jota was.

“And what I meant with that is that Jota was always himself, it didn’t matter if he was talking to me, to his teammates, to the staff, he was always himself. So let us try to be ourselves as well. So, if we want to laugh we laugh; if we want to cry we’re going to cry.

“If they want to train they can train, if they don’t want to train they can not train. But be yourself, don’t think you have to be different than your emotions tell you. Second of all, Jots was the player that if things were really, really, really difficult, I always looked at him and said, ‘Now we need something special from you.’

“And he delivered so many times in those moments. I can come up with all of these moments, even before I was here he had many of these moments as well. So we are in a very difficult time, so let’s try to do what Diogo did so many times. If it’s so difficult then try a little bit harder or just keep on going and try to make it work.”

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