‘Can We Laugh Again?’—Arne Slot Sends Poignant Message to Liverpool Fans Grieving Diogo Jota | OneFootball

In the days following the tragic passing of Liverpool forward Diogo Jota and his brother André Silva, there has been little appetite for football on Merseyside.

The club delayed the team’s return to pre-season training while players flocked to Jota’s funeral in his Portuguese hometown of Gondomar. No one will wear his No. 20 shirt for Liverpool ever again and few have been eager to don their own digits less than two weeks after news broke of the fatal car accident in Spain.

“Can we train again? Can we laugh again? Can we be angry if there’s a wrong decision?” Were the questions that Liverpool manager Arne Slot has been asking himself as the club gear up for a reluctant return to the pitch. His message was simple, follow Jota’s shining example.

“Nothing seems to be important if we think of what has happened,” Slot told the club’s official website ahead of Liverpool’s first pre-season friendly against Preston North End on Sunday. “But we are a football club and we need to train and we need to play again, if we want it or not.”

Wreaths were laid for Jota outside Anfield. / IMAGO/Propaganda Photo

“It’s very difficult to find the right words because we constantly debate what is appropriate,” Slot continued. “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 [would].

“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.”

Slot lauded Jota as “the player in our team I would say that mainly with him it was all about the team”. “He selected a photo after we won the league against Tottenham and he wanted to have that photo in his house,” the Dutch boss revealed. “He decided not to take one of himself, he decided to take one with us as the whole group, the whole staff in front of our fans. That probably tells us as a team and everyone around the world how much of a team player he was.”

To conclude a tear-jerking tribute, Slot added: “I think what I take comfort in [is that] in the last month of his life he was a champion in everything.

“A champion for his family, which is the main and most important thing, because he got married. A champion for his country because he won the Nations League, [with] a country that he cared about so much, because he also wore the flag when we had celebrations. And of course a champion for us by winning the Premier League.”