The first weekend of a new Premier League season is a time for optimism and for excitement. Even after an over-stuffed summer of soccer, which this year brought us the Club World Cup, the women's Euros, and the women's Copa América, there's nothing quite like the return of the club season. Overreactions are part of the fun this early—Viktor Gyokeres is a bust! West Ham is getting relegated!—but so is just watching competitive club soccer once more. The 2025-26 season started on Friday with a bittersweet debut, though, as the defending champions of Liverpool beat Bournemouth 4-2 at Anfield in the club's first competitive match at home since the death of Diogo Jota.
On July 3, Jota and his brother André Silva were driving in Zamora, Spain when a tire on Jota's car blew out as the Liverpool forward was overtaking another car. The car veered off the road and caught fire. Both men died at the scene. Jota had been driving towards Santander to take a ferry back to England; he was on doctor's orders to not fly after having minor lung surgery. After an investigation, the Spanish Civil Guard reported that the car had "significantly exceeded the speed limit for the highway." Jota was 28, while Silva, a midfielder for Portuguese second division team Penafiel, was 25.
Jota was a beloved member of the Liverpool team and the community of the city, for his tendency to score clutch goals but even more so for his infectious personality. Since his passing, his teammates have praised him not just for his play, but for the attitude he had in the locker room. He was a cherished teammate, someone who was as likely to win games with the ball at his feet as with a video game controller in his hands. (At one point in 2021 Jota was ranked the best FIFA Ultimate Team player in the world.) He was also a father to three children (Dinis, Duarte, and Mafalda), and a new husband to his partner Rute Cardoso; the pair had gotten married on June 22, just 11 days before his death.
That brings us to Friday's match. While Liverpool had played for the Community Shield the previous weekend—a moment soured by Crystal Palace fans making noise during a pre-match moment of silence for Jota and Silva—the Premier League opener was the first time the team played in front of its home fans since Jota's passing. Those fans brought plenty of scarves, banners, and tifos honoring Jota and Silva, as well as one banner that told Jota's wife and children that they would always have a home at Anfield. Holding the banners aloft before the match and during the customary rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone," the Anfield crowd's tribute to Jota was genuinely touching:
After that especially emotional version of the club's anthem, Anfield held a moment of silence for both men, one that went uninterrupted this time around. As the players and referees bowed their heads, fans in the stands held up graphics in honor of the brothers: DJ 20 and AS 30.
Elsewhere in England, similar moments of silence were held across all eight other matches over the weekend, and one more will be held at Monday's Leeds-Everton match. Earlier in the week, Chelsea announced that the club would give an equal cut of its Club World Cup winners bonus to Jota and Silva's family. Finally, Wolves held a tribute of their own for Jota, who played at Wolverhampton for three seasons. Rúben Neves, a former teammate of Jota's for both club and country, flew in to attend the match, while Portuguese Manchester City players Bernardo Silva and Rúben Dias were also visibly emotional at the Molineux Stadium:
Once the game at Anfield kicked off, the regular rhythms of Premier League play took over. Liverpool's starting lineup featured four of its new marquee signings from the summer transfer window. Former Leverkusen wonderkid Florian Wirtz led the midfield pressure, Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez, playing against his former club, slotted in at the wingback positions, and Hugo Ekitike led the frontline alongside Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo. It would be Ekitike, signed from Eintracht Frankfurt, who would make his mark first in a stellar debut for the Reds. The Frenchman was all over the Bournemouth backline, pressuring them and finding gaps in space to connect with his new teammates, before scoring the first goal of the domestic campaign in the 37th minute:
(Seventeen minutes before Ekitike's goal, in the 20th minute, the Liverpool crowd sang for Jota, its forever No. 20. I expect that song at that time to be a mainstay at Liverpool games this season.)
Ekitike was once again involved in a scoring play on the other side of halftime, providing an assist to Cody Gakpo's 49th minute scorcher of a goal:
Credit to Bournemouth, which has had to rebuild almost its entire defense, for not collapsing in an emotional atmosphere. That atmosphere wasn't all perfect, though. The match was stopped briefly in the 29th minute for what was later revealed to be due to a racist insult hurled by a Liverpool fan at Bournemouth's Antoine Semenyo. The fan was later ejected from the grounds by security, arrested, and now has been handed a UK-wide stadium ban. It was a disgusting reminder that even in a day of tribute and remembrance, never mind one of sport, jackassery still abounds.
Semenyo scored two goals in 12 minutes halfway through the second 45 to equalize for the visitors, with his second an early showstopper for this Premier League season. First, though, in the 64th minute, Semenyo got on the end of a low cross by David Brooks (no, not that David Brooks). Then, in the 76th, he received the ball in his own half, ran almost the entire length of the pitch, and sent a rugburner past Alisson to knot the scoreline at two goals apiece:
With Liverpool wanting to win both for the points and for a much-needed emotional release, it would be one of Jota's attacking counterparts who would deliver the game winner. Federico Chiesa transferred to Liverpool last summer from Juventus, but had an inconsequential first season in England, struggling through injuries and little-to-no game time. Heading into this season, with Liverpool buying Wirtz and Ekitike—as well as its public pursuit of Newcastle's Alexander Isak—it looked like Chiesa would be buried once more on the depth chart. However, in a bit of Jotaesque clutch, Chiesa finally announced his long-awaited arrival as a key player of the Reds, latching on to a loose ball in the box and hitting an incredible outside of the foot laser that somehow avoided a mass of bodies in the box on the way to the back of the net:
You could really feel the relief and exhilaration as Chiesa sprinted to the corner and slid in front of the Anfield crowd losing its ever-loving mind. While the loss of Jota will weigh on Liverpool for the days, weeks, months, and years ahead, there's beauty in this tribute game coming down to a substitute scoring a goal to secure the full three points for the Reds. It's what Jota did so often, and while his goals will matter least in the man's greater life and legacy, Chiesa took the mantle in fitting tribute.
That wouldn't be the last goal on Friday, though. Mohamed Salah is an opening-day master, having scored nine goals on first match-days entering Friday's. Salah had a bit of a quiet match while Ekitike and Gakpo and Chiesa all filled the scoresheet, but there he was in the 94th minute, scoring a goal that could only have been more vintage Salah if it were from the other side of the field: Despite usually doing his damage on the right wing, where he can cut onto his powerful left foot, Salah scored on Friday from the left wing, cutting inside after corralling a long ball and shooting a bouncer with his weaker foot to seal the deal:
Since Jota's passing, fans have learned just how close Salah (along with left back Andy Robertson) was to Jota. Salah celebrated his goal by doing one of his teammate's celebrations, a gator chomp in front of the Kop, Anfield's famed fan stand. After the final whistle, Salah once again faced the Kop, as the fans serenaded him with Jota's name and the song that they had created for him. It's clear that this moment hit Salah deeply, as he applauded the fans with tears in his eyes:
In the long run, this was just one day in the 38-game gauntlet of the Premier League season. On paper, Liverpool did what it was expected to, beating a less-talented team at home, and though it wasn't as convincing as a 4-2 scoreline might suggest, three points are three points. But the actual importance of Friday's match was much greater. While the initial shock and tragedy of Jota and Silva's death might have dulled a bit in the month and a half since the car accident, the players, who trained with Jota every day and played with him all over the world, will surely bear this loss for the entire season and beyond. It's sometimes difficult to remember that soccer is a sport played by real people with real connections and emotions. Friday's match was always going to be fraught with those emotions, with Jota's wide smile and his No. 20 jersey painfully absent. Liverpool, both the club and the fans, gave Jota a beautiful memorial, though, and I have to imagine that, while it won't get any easier to bear the weight of his sudden departure, the tribute will help the club carry on, together.
