On the eve of the first anniversary of Diogo Jota and Andr\u00e9 Silva\u2019s untimely deaths, Liverpool installed a permanent memorial at Anfield to honour the brothers. The club had retired Jota\u2019s number 20 ahead of the 2025\u201326 season and, one year on, unveiled a sculpture by Emma Rodgers on 97 Avenue at Anfield titled ‘Forever 20’.<\/p>\n
The work features a flowing heart sculpture mounted above a Granby Rock\u2011faced stone plinth. The heart is an explicit homage to Jota\u2019s goal celebration and bears the brothers\u2019 shirt numbers, 20 and 30, along with the lyrics to Jota\u2019s Liverpool song. The stone plinth carries both brothers\u2019 names and YNWA beneath the inscription ‘Forever 20’ and ‘He will take us to victory. Oh, his name is Diogo.’<\/p>\n
Personal tributes were incorporated into the piece. Sections of scarves and shirts supplied by supporters are set in wax and embedded in the memorial, while a single flower previously left by a fan has been cast in bronze. A PlayStation controller sits on the plinth as an additional nod to Jota\u2019s well known celebration.<\/p>\n
“In its creation, and through the hands of sculptor Emma Rodgers, this memorial has been inspired by the many personal tributes and mementoes left at Anfield by visitors from across the international football community.<\/p>\n
“Some of these tributes are contained within the sculpture and plinth via a unique manufacturing process. It means they are forever embedded. Based on a continuous flowing heart design incorporating the brothers\u2019 shirt numbers 20 and 30, the artwork not only conveys the enduring bond they shared, but also expresses the love and admiration in which they were held by their family teammates and fans\u2014with the heart gesture itself reflecting Diogo\u2019s signature goal celebration.<\/p>\n
“This memorial honors the brothers\u2019 lives and celebrates their lasting legacy.” <\/p>\n
After the unveiling, the club issued a statement to outline the intent behind the design and the tribute to the brothers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liverpool has unveiled ‘Forever 20’, a permanent memorial at Anfield honouring Jota and his brothers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[1471],"class_list":["post-16118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-all-red-all-equal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}