Liverpool FC coach Arne Slot has brought a white bouquet. For a moment he puts the condolence card good, to make sure it is firmly stuck. He reads some of the other hundreds of funeral cards between the Sea of Bloemen at Anfield. It is five days after the death of Diogo Jota, the attacker who could often count on if his team had a hard time.
Slot is not alone, his wife Mirjam is with us. She prefers to stay in the background, Slot told in May NRC. But now, with cameras in herself, she is still there to prove her honor. It underlines that the death of Jota (28) and his younger brother André, on 3 July in a car accident in northern Spain, Slot and his wife are very personal.
After he had presented himself as a top trainer with extraordinary tactical insight in his first season, something else is asked of Slot (46) in these months. With his rhetorical talent, he has to control the mourning in a city that is so closely linked to the club. Significant for the collective sorrow was that the coach, players and fans from local rival Everton also came to Anfield to show their respect.
Due to his work ethic, humility and goals at crucial moments, Jota was particularly popular with the supporters. In a career with many injuries, everything seemed to fall into place this year – also on a personal level. He had just won the Premier League for the first time, won the Nations League with Portugal and married Rute, mother of their three children eleven days before the fatal accident.
‘Forever 20’
This weekend a minute of silence will be held in the opening round of the Premier League with all duels. As a tribute, Liverpool, which already played against Bournemouth (4-2 victory) on Friday evening, pulled his back number 20 back forever-exceptionally in the English top football. ‘Forever 20‘This season is on the Liverpool competition shirts.
“To represent this club in this city, now means even more for me, and for my wife, than before,” says Slot the week after the death of Jota On the Club Canal. By involving his wife, he explicitly shows his human side as a trainer. Something that is not new at Liverpool FC.
In fact, the analogy in the past of the club is unmistakable by tragedies. After Hillsborough, the stadium disaster in 1989 in which 97 Liverpool fans died, then trainer Kenny Dalglish and his wife visited many funerals. “Marina and I went to four in one day,” says his biography. “Most church services ended with”You’ll Never Walk Alone“.” Dalglish became so exhausted emotionally that he stopped prematurely at Liverpool, but for his compassion shown, the club icon still gets enormous appreciation.
109 injured
It should have been a festive summer for Liverpool FC, after the second national title in 35 years. It became a full suffering. During the ceremony with massive parade through the city, at the end of May, a man with a gray Ford Galaxy drove into a crowd. 109 people were injured – four serious, including a child.
“After the tragedy at the Parade, the feeling was: are we again involved in something terrible?” Says former player David Fairclough by telephone from his birthplace Liverpool. Although no one died now, FairClough almost automatically thought of Hillsborough. Good trainers understand that social significance of Hillsborough and the Heyseldrama (1985), says Ian Byrne, local politician and Liverpool fan. “It is part of the cultural heritage of the club and mentality of the supporters.” Rafael Benítez and Slots predecessor Jürgen Klopp had that awareness, he says.
A wall at Anfield with texts in honor of Jota.
Photo Reuters/Phil Noble
That historic charge undoubtedly played when Slot abandoned a gala one day after the ceremony where he would receive the prize for best trainer of the year. Out of solidarity with the victims of the parade. In a long statement he thanked the medical services and other authorities for their efforts after the incident.
It illustrates how important the position of Liverpool’s head coach is in Merseyside. You also have to show leadership scores, says Byrne, who was sixteen when he experienced the Hillsborough disaster. Of course the coach is first and foremost appointed to win prizes. “But as a Liverpool trainer you are also a social leader, you have to be close to the people.”
Klopp felt that flawlessly – with his charisma and emotion he built a strong cultural bond with club and city. Slot showed “worthy leadership” after the death of Jota and the incident at the Parade in a more calm, balanced way. “It was completely about the human side,” he says, and not the business or sporting aspect. “I think Arne played a major role in that.”
Much has already been set in motion. According to various media, JOTA’s continuous contract for two years is fully paid to his family – around 14 million euros. Proceeds from shirt sales with the print ‘Diogo J. 20‘Go to a foundation that sets up a program for amateur football in the name of Jota. All objects – such as scarves or special works of art – that have been placed by Fans at Anfield are used for a permanent memorial monument at the stadium.
The question in the coming period is how the loss of a beloved teammate influences the players’ group. How do you do justice to the drama and at the same time prevent mourning from paralyzing the team? It is that difficult balance that Slot has been trying to find a road since the beginning of July.
“Nothing seems to be important when we think of what happened,” Slot told the club channel in mid -July. That was shortly before a practice game at Preston North End, the first reunion with the supporters of Liverpool an hour. A bouquet was laid, there was a minute of silence, everywhere Jota’s name and image were shown, Liverpool fans constantly sang a popular song about him and afterwards the ovation from the branch seemed to never stop.
“But we are a football club and we have to train and we have to play again,” had said Slot. He is “incredibly good” in finding the “right balance” in difficult situations, says former player Fairclough. What Slot now helps is that the supporters became used to his personality in the course of last season, he says. “Respect people what he says.”
Slot nevertheless finds it ‘very difficult’ to now find ‘the right words’. Within the club they had many discussions in the preparation about what is appropriate. “Can we be angry if a wrong decision is made?”
Abdelhak Nouri
The best thing they can do ‘maybe’, Slot said to his selection is to deal with this situation as Jota was. “He was always himself. So let’s try to be ourselves. If we want to laugh, we laugh. If we want to cry, we cry. If you don’t want to train, you can. But be yourself. Don’t think you should be different from your emotions.”
Similar words sounded at Ajax in 2017 after the tragedy around Abdelhak Nouri, who was struck by a cardiac arrest during a practice game in Austria. “If you want to be angry, be angry. Who wants to play football, will play football. If you don’t want to play football, you don’t do it,” said team manager Tjerk Smeets in the book at the time Nouri, the promise from Henk Spaan. The equal scope indicates that Slot Advies has obtained from Marcel Keizer, head coach at the time and now assistant at Ajax. They know each other well.
Although the circumstances are incomparable. Nouri collapsed in the midst of teammates on the field and got into a coma. Jota died after the season, when teammates were still on vacation. It was also so difficult for various Ajax players because they already knew Nouri from the youth academy or Young Ajax. They decided that Nouri’s clothing should stay in the dressing room for the rest of the season. Liverpool empties the place of Jota in the dressing room, as a reminder. His name is visible, “Diogo J.”.
The club attracted many players that Jota did not know this summer, so that the team can make a kind of new start. “How players adapt to his loss will be the key: there is still sadness and a kind of” why he? “-Feeling around the club,” emails football sociologist and Liverpool fan John Williams.
He believes that Slot leads the issue with ‘a lot of insight and class’, although Williams misses the ’emotional power’ of Klopp. But he now sees that as an advantage. “He is both calm and empathetic. If Klopp was still in charge, the Jota affair might have become too emotionally exhausting. Instead, Slot has shown complete respect, but he also went further-as the club has to do.”
Applause from Liverpool coach slot for Jota in the 20th minute with a practice game.
Photo Reuters/Lee Smith