Liverpool will create a permanent tribute to Diogo Jota and André Silva while the Premier League champions will wear a “Forever 20” emblem on their shirts in the new campaign. The club confirmed the news before Saturday’s friendly in Hong Kong, where a much-changed side went down 4-2 to Milan.
Jota died in a car crash along with his brother Silva in Spain on 3 July. Tributes were paid at Anfield with flowers, scarves, cards and jerseys being laid around the ground. The club confirmed that physical tributes have been removed and stored, while floral tributes will be composted and used in flower beds at Anfield and training facilities. The remaining items will be recycled and used to create a permanent memorial sculpture at Anfield.
Liverpool’s Premier League season kicks off with a meeting against Bournemouth on 15 August and a main commemoration is set to take place with a fan mosaic and a minute of silence.
Liverpool fans enjoyed their first sighting of their record signing, Florian Wirtz, who made his debut against Milan. The playmaker was lively and his linkup play with Mohamed Salah will have impressed the head coach, Arne Slot, although his team’s vulnerability against some rapid counterattacks was exposed.
Liverpool fell behind in the 10th minute when the outstanding Rafael Leão scored from a Christian Pulisic pass. Dominik Szoboszlai levelled 20 minutes later with a curling shot from the edge of the box following an assist by Rio Ngumoha.
Leão was a key figure with his pace unsettling Liverpool on the break and he was again the architect of Milan’s second as they retook the lead early in the second half. The Portuguese winger powered past Conor Bradley on the left and set up the former England midfielder Ruben Loftus-Cheek to fire home.
Noah Okafor added Milan’s third and, while Cody Gakpo nodded in a stoppage-time consolation, Okafor walked in the fourth following a mix-up between stand-in centre-half Kostas Tsimikas and the new Liverpool keeper Giorgi Mamardashvili. Liverpool were forced into playing the Greek international alongside Ibrahima Konaté in the second half as Joe Gomez had returned to Merseyside after an achilles injury.
Luis Díaz was not involved with the winger looking increasingly likely to move to Bayern Munich while Darwin Núñez, another player set to depart Anfield this summer, was nursing a “minor” injury.
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“Conceding four isn’t what we want but you have to consider the circumstances, we missed seven senior players, and wanted to give 20 players playing time, so players have to play out of position,” Slot said. “We still were able to play our normal game, but we were a bit too open in the counterattack.”
Liverpool travel to Japan to take on Yokohama FM in the J League World Challenge on Wednesday with their £79m signing, Hugo Ekitiké, likely to play some part.
