Liverpool played their opening match against Bournemouth on Friday evening, grabbing an early three points. The high scoring game ended 4-2 to the Reds. But in the end, it was all about remembering Diogo Jota. Even sitting at home across the ocean, I could feel the love pouring out for Jota. It will likely be a long time until the heaviness of the grief leaves every match, for the players and fans.
After the match, which had plenty of its own dramatic twists and turns — including six goals — head coach Arne Slot kept the focus on Jota and how the city has rallied together to honor him and comfort his family.
When asked if he could describe his emotions following the match, Slot said, “If you have half an hour [I can explain how I feel]! But the main emotion should be how impressive and powerful the tribute for Diogo was. The banner the Kop showed, the way You’ll Never Walk Alone was sung, the way they sung for Diogo before the game, in the first minute, after 20 minutes and at the end of the game. It was all so, so impressive and so powerful and that is, I think, what my main emotion is after the game. Then, there was even a game that ended in 4-2 where a lot of things happened.“
It shouldn’t be a surprise at this point that Mohamed Salah scored on opening day. He took his sweet time about it on Friday, getting the game’s final goal at 90’+4’ to ensure victory after Federico Chiesa’s winner minutes prior. The weight of the moment caught up with him, as he spent several minutes following the final whistle clearly emotional and communing with the Kop.
Slot said about this, “I actually didn’t want to go in after the game because I found it so special how our fans reacted today and how they kept on singing at the end of the game for Diogo. I think the whole day and the whole game is, every time you think you cannot expect more from Liverpool fans they top this or they overperform. Again, what a tribute and I think Mo felt after the game how special that was and probably he felt the emotion.
“We all knew his family is here, his wife is here, and his children are here. For them it might be special to hear how much he is loved over here and with the fans and the banner and what they did. But we also feel the emotions of how much grief they still have. That mixed emotions maybe led to Mo being emotional and I think I felt the same without being in tears, but I definitely felt the same emotions.”
The only stain on the evening (and it’s a big one) was when the game was halted after visiting Cherry Antoine Semenyo reported receiving racist abuse from a fan in the crowd. The fan was reportedly found and booted out, hopefully never to dirty the Anfield ground again.
Slot had praise for Semenyo, who scored both of Bournemouth’s goals, afterward.
“Wherever we can help him we will try to do so,” Slot said.
“Big credit to him, if something happens like this and you can perform so well in the second half then he’s not only a great player, because that I can see [with] how fast he is, but he is also very strong mentally. If something like that happened [and] to get such a second-half performance, that sums up him as a person and him as a player. But, again, [it’s] unacceptable in football in general, let alone at Anfield.”
Ending last season with a string of Sunday fixtures wasn’t enough. This season they’re starting on a Friday and won’t play their next match until Monday when Liverpool take on Newcastle United.