It was emotional day for Liverpool and their supporters as they took to the field for the first time following the tragic passing of Diogo Jota and his brother, Andre Silva, in their opening pre-season fixture against Championship club Preston North End
Liverpool’s stars were left fighting back tears as the club’s supporters sang about Diogo Jota following the Reds first match since the star’s passing. For seven minutes after the final whistle, Liverpool staff and players stood watching and applauding as their fans honoured their beloved team-mate.
The Reds faithful made their voices heard on what had already been an emotional day. Virgial van Dijk pulled Darwin Nunez close to comfort him, as Andy Robertson struggled to face the tribute. Players clapped along with Mohamed Salah at the forefront and Kostas Tsimikas doing his best to sing along, clearly impacted by the moment.
It was a moving scene at Deepdale where Arne Slot also looked touched by the moment that felt more important and more impactful that the minutes Liverpool’s stars got in their legs against Preston. It was a day full of them.
The afternoon started with a renditition of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ by Claudia Rose Maguire, wife of former Preston player Sean, before kick-off. Preston captain Ben Whiteman walked the length of the pitch to lay a wreath in front of the visiting fans, banners and scarves bearing Jota’s name coloured the Bill Shankly stand.
But Jota’s name was sung long before that. And Liverpool’s fans made sure his name was heard throughout the match.
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When they called out his name after 20 minutes, in reference to his squad number that was retired, all corners of Deepdale rose to their feet and joined in an applause.
Conor Bradley could not help but look to the sky when he opened the scoring after 33 minutes, before being joined by his team-mates. Darwin made sure to replicate two of Jota’s iconic celebrations when he found the net, while Cody Gakpo clapped his hands together like the Portuguese star before showing the number 20 with his hands.
The Reds came away 3-1 victors having handed debuts to the likes of Giorgi Mamardashvili, Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong, but all thoughts centred around Jota.
Commentator John Bradley reflected on the difficulty of covering the game. “Thanks for all the lovely messages,” he said.
“Hardest commentary I’ve ever done in my life. Hope we gave you a feeling of how special it was to be at Deepdale today. I feel a bit broken now and am sorry for the tears, but in that moment, it couldn’t be helped”
Ahead of the match, Slot shared some touching words calling for his squad to be true to their emotions. The Dutchman wanted his team to reflect the characteristics they loved in Jota, and to carry the player in their thoughts.
“Nothing seems to be important if we think of what has happened,” said Slot. “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.”