Arne Slot dedicates respect to DioGo Jota while Liverpool is set for pre-season
Liverpool boss Arne Slot said it had been difficult for the team to return to work after Diogo Jota’s death, and so he had suggested to his players that perhaps the best way forward was to follow the bright example of their late friend.
Liverpool were starting their pre-season friendships with a preston game on Sunday, 10 days after Whose And his brother Andre Silva died in a car accident in Spain on July 3.
“What I have told the players, it is very difficult to find the right words because we constantly argue what is appropriate,” Slot said in an emotional interview with the media inside Liverpool’s house.
“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 get angry if there is a wrong decision?
“And I have told them, maybe the best thing for us to do is treat this situation as it was,” he added. “And what I have thought about this is that Jota was always himself, it didn’t matter if he was talking to me, with his teammates, with the staff, he was always himself.
“So let’s try to be ourselves too. So if we want to laugh we laugh; if we want to cry we’ll cry.”
Liverpool delayed the return of players to pre-season training as most of them participated in the funeral in Portugal last week.
The club announced on Friday that they would withdraw permanently to number 20.
Slot said the 28-year-old, who played a leading role in Liverpool by winning the Premier League title this last season, was a player for which he could always rely on difficult times.
“I always looked at him and said,” Now we need something special from you, “Slot said. “And he delivered so many times. I can come up with all these moments.
“So we’re in a very difficult time, so let’s try to do what Diogo did so many times. If it’s so hard, then try a little more or just keep going and trying to make it work.”
Slot, who said the team would always keep in their hearts, said it was a challenge to see anything, including football, as “important if we think about what happened.”
“But we are a football club and we have to train and we have to play again, whether we love it or not.”