{"id":250676,"date":"2025-07-09T11:57:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T11:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/250676\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T11:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T11:57:11","slug":"liverpool-pre-season-friendly-vs-preston-will-go-ahead-liverpool-fc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/250676\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool pre-season friendly vs. Preston WILL go ahead – Liverpool FC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liverpool\u2019s opening pre-season friendly away to Preston will officially go ahead as planned after consulting players and staff following the death of Diogo Jota<\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n

The decision was made to consult players and staff before any final call on whether they would fulfil their opening friendly of the summer.<\/p>\n

But Liverpool\u2019s clash with Preston at Deepdale will go ahead as planned at 3pm (BST) on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The game will be broadcast live on ITV1 in the UK, which had been the case prior to Jota\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Jota had been travelling back for pre-season when his vehicle crashed in northern Spain on Thursday morning, and he was laid to rest alongside his brother, Andre Silva, on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\"PRESTON,<\/p>\n

Further tributes will be paid to the No. 20 on what will be a highly emotional afternoon for all involved.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen which players will be involved following their return for pre-season, with Jota\u2019s death having a profound affect on his teammates.<\/p>\n

Members of Liverpool\u2019s squad, coaches and club officials attended the funeral<\/a> in Gondomar before a delayed start to pre-season at the AXA Training Centre on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

In his tribute to Jota, Mohamed Salah<\/a> spoke of how the No. 20\u2019s tragic passing had left him \u201cfrightened of going back to Liverpool after the break.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am truly lost for words,\u201d Salah penned.<\/p>\n

\"LIVERPOOL,<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil yesterday, I never thought there would be something that would frighten me of going back to Liverpool after the break.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeam mates come and go but not like this. It\u2019s going to be extremely difficult to accept that Diogo won\u2019t be there when we go back.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy thoughts are with his wife, his children, and of course his parents who suddenly lost their children.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose close to Diogo and his brother Andre need all the support they can get. They will never be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Florian<\/p>\n

The clash with Championship side Preston could serve as an opportunity for the likes of Florian Wirtz<\/a>, Jeremie Frimpong<\/a>, Milos Kerkez<\/a> and Giorgi Mamardashvili<\/a> to make their unofficial debuts for Liverpool.<\/p>\n

Frimpong was among the first players spotted arriving at the AXA Training Centre on Tuesday and has already settled back in the northwest following his move from Bayer Leverkusen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two players who are unlikely to be involved, however, are Harvey Elliott<\/a> and Tyler Morton<\/a>, with the pair granted an extended break following their success with England at the U21 Euros.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liverpool\u2019s opening pre-season friendly away to Preston will officially go ahead as planned after consulting players and staff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[94,763,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-250676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-liverpool-fc","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114823158108123761","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}