It all looked so normal. Close to the distant touchline, a group of Liverpool players put a ball around in one of those high-speed Rondos, while the right hand of Arne Slot Sipke Hulshoff was supervised and encouraged.
The sun, the Liverpool fans in the Bill Shankly head, were shining in red and the team schedule was rich in intrigues: Giorgio Mhamardashvili, the Georgia International, started for the first time in Doel; Academy graduated Rio Ngumoha and Trey Nyoni offered future promise.
But while you investigated this scene, the melancholic choice for the song that was played in Deepdale felt completely suitable. Souvenir, one of the orchestral maneuvers in the largest selection of the dark, is emotional and moving and contains the line: “You will understand it, it's not important now.”
How good that is. On the digital screen there was a picture of Diogo Jota and Andre Silva, two brothers in weapons. It was only 10 days since the pair of tragic died in a car accident, but here were the Premier League champions who tried to continue their routine.
The fact that Liverpool was here was a triumph in itself. Yes, there will be a point after a mourning when life has to continue, but something felt like this occasion is disorienting for the 21,289 that were packed in this historic stadium. How can football matter when sadness so everything is needed?
“Nothing seems important when we think of what happened,” Arne Slot told LFC TV before the kick -off, his only interview of the day. “But we are a football club. We have to train and we have to play again, if we want it or not.
'It is very difficult to find the right words, because we constantly debate about what is appropriate. What is fitting in our promotions? Can we train again? Can we laugh again? Can we be angry if there is a wrong decision? I said to them, perhaps the best for us is to treat this situation such as Jota.
“What I meant is that Jota was always herself. It didn't matter if he spoke to me against me, with his teammates. So let's also try to be ourselves. If we want to laugh, we laugh. If we want to cry, we will cry. Don't think you should be different from your emotions to tell you. '
And how their emotions are raw. While the fans sang the name of Jota relentlessly, at 240 hours, 246 hours, continuously for nine minutes when the clock reached 20 – the number he wore with such a distinction and now retired by the club – the players did their best to continue.
How they did it after the most impeccable ceremony for game is proof of their professionalism. Before a flawless minute of silence, Preston captain Ben Whiteman slowly ran alone and wore a white wreath to the end. The opportunity also clearly affected him.
But both parties continued and played the game as professionally as Jota would have done. Preston was a credit and their fans deserved it completely to celebrate when Liam Lindsay stopped the benefit of Conor Bradley and Darwin Nunez on both sides of the rest, Liverpool had given the lead.
However, Cody Gakpo saw that no comeback would come out, but even if it had done that, so what? Gakpo, a man of pious faith, pointed to heaven after celebrating with a thunderbolt, just as his much missed old friend would have done.
At the last whistle they all came together spontaneously: Liverpool players who stand in front of the end, sing fans for Jota. It was very powerful and moving and then, as the stadium cleaned up, Souvenir was played for the second time. Football is not important. Unity is the only thing that counts.