2 weeks ago
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Jurgen Klopp said that he still cannot imagine a locker room at Liverpool without Diogo Jota in it.
Jota was killed alongside his brother in a car crash in Spain on July 3 as he journeyed back to the United Kingdom, ahead of the start of pre-season training with Liverpool. Klopp was the Liverpool manager when Jota joined the Reds from Wolves in 2020, and spent four years in charge of the Portuguese until he quit as Reds boss last year.
Klopp was speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast, which was recorded during the international break — an international break that Liverpool went into off the back of three successive defeats.
That run now stands at four games, following the loss to Manchester United at Anfield, and Klopp suggested that the impact of Jota's tragic passing on the Reds' form shouldn't be underestimated.
"I cannot imagine the dressing room without him, it’s so hard, it’s so hard," Klopp said. "I still cannot properly speak about it. It was an incredible shock. That’s for the boys as well.
"Quick thing, we don’t speak about it because otherwise some bad journalist will make a quick story about what it is and how it means.
"Nobody at Liverpool will ever use it as an excuse, but it is the situation. You walk every day in this room where he was omnipresent.
"To talk about him, he was so close with James Milner, they’re not the same age group and have nothing the same. On the same, he was so close with Kostas Tsimikas. That’s like moon and mars.
"Dealing with that on a personal level - not easy, impossible."
Klopp was spot on with his assessment of Liverpool's struggles in the face of an unimaginable tragedy.
While the tendency from soccer fans and pundits is to focus on what they see on the pitch, the reality is that Liverpool's players are only in competitive action for a maximum of three and a bit hours every week.
There are another 165 hours each week that we don't see, and many of those are spent on the training ground and in the company of teammates when traveling to and from away games.
By all accounts, as brilliant a player as he was, Jota was an even better teammate, and it is in those environments where he is most keenly missed.
The impact of his death on Liverpool's squad cannot be underestimated, and Klopp is right to point out that it absolutely should be factored in when assessing the team's performances on the pitch.
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