Trent Alexander-Arnold offered a small but visible tribute to former Liverpool teammate Diogo Jota during Real Madrid\u2019s Champions League win over Benfica. The detail was noticed by supporters and captured in photographs from the tie in Jota\u2019s native Portugal.<\/p>\n
The right back, who joined Real Madrid as he began a new chapter in his career, was pictured wearing boots engraved with the No. 20, Jota\u2019s shirt number at Anfield, alongside an infinity symbol. Liverpool have since retired the No. 20 at senior and youth level. Fans continue to mark his memory by singing his chant in the 20th minute of matches, and memorials have been established outside Anfield and Wolverhampton Wanderers\u2019 Molineux.<\/p>\n
Alexander-Arnold and Jota were close friends during their time together on Merseyside, and the Madrid defender paid an emotional public tribute after Jota\u2019s passing last July. \u201cHe was a very close friend, someone who lit up a room when he was in it,\u201d he said. \u201cI shared the dressing room for five years [and have] amazing memories on and off the pitch with him. It goes without saying he will never be forgotten by anyone. He will live long in all our memories for the amazing man and player he was.\u201d<\/p>\n
The match against Benfica also featured a separate controversy when the first leg was temporarily halted in the second half after Vinicius Junior was allegedly racially abused by opponent Gianluca Prestianni. UEFA are currently investigating the incident, and Alexander-Arnold publicly condemned Prestianni after the allegation that he called Vinicius a \u201cmonkey.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course I can\u2019t comment too much, it\u2019s ongoing investigation,\u201d the 27-year-old told Amazon Prime after the game. \u201cBut it\u2019s a disgrace to football, Vini has suffered from this, it\u2019s disgusting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The boots were a subtle reminder of Jota\u2019s influence on team-mates and supporters alike, and of the personal connections that persist as players move clubs and competitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During Real Madrid’s CL tie with Benfica, Alexander-Arnold wore boots bearing Jota’s No. 20 symbol..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6969,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1027,175,987],"tags":[1471,1047],"class_list":["post-6970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-benfica","category-liverpool","category-real-madrid","tag-all-red-all-equal","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6970","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=6970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}