Sometimes the worst of times can bring the best out of people. Liverpool have more proof than most. Their history was tinged by tragedy even before a car crash claimed the life of Diogo Jota on Thursday morning. Grief can be a particularly private emotion; and yet a life lived in public can sometimes compel people to respond to the wider world, whether or not they really want to.
As the flowers outside Anfield show, Jota meant a lot to many who never met him. Those who did were probably in a sense of “absolute shock”, as Arne Slot put it. Processing the sudden loss of a friend, teammate and, as many were swift to say, a man whose primary roles were as husband, father and son in the age of social media can feel even harder; the hours of radio silence were immediately understandable but gave way to a series of moving messages.
