From our special correspondent in Liverpool,
PSG is resting its bags at Anfield, a year after having snatched qualification for the quarter-finals of the Champions League after a founding evening, and ready to play the same dirty trick again on the Scousers. At first glance, Liverpool has remained Liverpool: a city of music lulled by street singers, those in bars, and the omnipresent laughter of seagulls. But on closer inspection, nothing is the same. Luis Enrique’s players return with the status of European champions, having doubled a two-goal lead over the Reds, far from inspiring the same fear as last year, despite a summer transfer window of 500 players.
The most ruthless supporters see it as the failure of Arne Slot, increasingly hotly contested, but a large number of Scousers continue to question the merits of any critical analysis of the current season, since it was established that it would be unlike any other since the death of Diogo Jota in a road accident on July 3, 2025. “I think the club knows exactly what period we are in,” declared the Dutch last Friday. In the meantime, I feel fully supported. »
Robertson, Salah and the spontaneous expression of grief
Since the start of the season, the accuracy of the club’s observers has been put to the test in a unique context which requires a form of moral agility. Because we don’t blame a team in mourning from the first day of its preseason as we would with any average club. “It’s been difficult, it’s almost impossible to consider this season a normal season because it’s an event of such magnitude that it will continue to have repercussions throughout the season,” predicts Mo Stewart, journalist for The Anfield Wrap. This trauma is deeply rooted in them (the players). And it’s not always easy to remember that in the heat of the moment when you follow football, but I think that whenever I criticized them, I always tried to keep that in mind. And I think a lot of people share that feeling. »
If the weight of mourning in the Scousers’ performances has become more difficult to grasp, it is because the obvious exercise of sadness as close as possible to the drama ended up cloaking itself in modesty as we moved away from it. As for the management of Slot, it remained secret. “It’s a difficult situation, because it’s not a subject we talk about often anymore,” adds Stewart.
The signs of grief continued to exist, but more sparsely. They were often spontaneous, like the tears of Mohamed Salah alone in front of the Kop after a victory against Bournemouth, or the breakdown of Andy Robertson after Scotland’s qualification for the World Cup, the content of which remains to this day the most faithful expression of what the days of Arne Slot’s players may have looked like throughout the season. “I couldn’t stop thinking about him all day,” the Scotsman confided. I was a little nervous in my room before the match, I’m so proud it ended like this. »
Songs in the 20th minute, between homage and hindrance to mourning
Collective grief is inherently more complex to manage, especially in the case of a group of overexposed people like the Liverpool team. The players pass daily in front of the player’s empty locker at the training center and at Anfield, and live in an environment where frescoes and posters abound in tribute to the late Portuguese international.
A point raised by sports psychologist Gary Bloom in the podcast The Sport Agent in November, who alerted in this regard to the possibility that the songs sung by the Anfield public in the 20th minute of each match in tribute to Diogo Jota represent a brake on the mourning work of certain players, without calling into question the goodwill of the approach.
« This is very different from individual grief. When fans and players are involved it becomes different. When you’re trying to deal with your grief in a personal way, there aren’t 20,000 people screaming the name (of the person you lost). You are not present during the tributes. In the main stand at Anfield, you’re constantly reminded of it. »
Now a member of the Liverpool legends team, where he played from 2000 to 2005, Grégory Vignal experienced the collective tribute during a charity match against Borussia Dortmund in March. “We all stopped in the 20th minute to applaud. He is a player who was part of a generation which left its mark on this club. Honoring the memory of players is part of the DNA of this club, the respect and attachment of supporters towards their players. » That day, and like many others before him, the young retiree Thiago Alcantara cried. He arrived at the Reds at the same time as Diogo Jota in 2020.
Flowers, controllers and a wall full of words
According to the statements of Virgil Van Dijk in an interview with The Timestime has done its work, and the songs no longer have the same effect on the players in the squad. “We discussed it (the chants in the 20th) minute with the locker room executives, and we are at a stage where it does not affect us. This is obviously a sign of respect from our fans. So it’s up to the fans to decide what happens. »
The players wouldn’t have had a choice anyway. Given the club’s past tragedies, the culture of memory has become non-negotiable at Liverpool. It is no coincidence that the corner of the lawn facing the memorial to the Hillsborough victims was chosen as a place of contemplation, where scarves, flags, portraits of Diogo Jota and even playstation controllers accumulate – in relation to his passion for the game Fifa. It is here that the four Portuguese players from Paris Saint-Germain as well as Luis Campos came to lay flowers on Monday afternoon.
No coincidence either, if, a street further on, all the bricks of the “Jota 20 Forever” wall are filled with messages from supporters to the point that the latecomers decided to continue the work on the old dilapidated wall of the house opposite it – “vandalism”, recalls a plaque nailed by the club. The supporters also needed to mourn the disappearance of Diogo Jota.
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