Jota's devastating death could inspire Liverpool's players to new heights or make title defence difficult

Elite athletes sit alone in a brilliant rectangle of light seemingly unbound by many of the constraints that restrict the rest of us.

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When mortality strikes this escapist playground, it rocks supporters. But it also asks the hardest questions of those who remain in the arena.

On March 2nd, 2004 the then Tyrone football captain Cormac McAnallen passed away in his sleep from an undiagnosed heart condition. He was 24.

Eighteen months after his death, Tyrone would win their second AllIreland and three years later another. Teammate Sean Cavanagh would subsequently talk of how his friend was at his shoulder in those moments.

"Virtually every game I played, especially the big games, any time I looked for inspiration, I went and said prayers at Cormac's grave.

"This story is a bit weird to be honest, but it's true. The day before the 2008 All-Ireland final, I went to Cormac's grave around 11 o'clock in the morning, and I was just saying a few prayers when this cat appeared from absolutely nowhere.

"It sat at my feet the entire time I was there, and it then genuinely vanished, like someone turned out a light. It just wasn't there anymore, and I'm not into the hocus pocus stuff, I'm the biggest critic of that stuff, but this spooked me out.

"I got into the car, and in 2003 the Tyrone team had made a CD where we all picked a song, and Cormac's song was 'Gold' by Spandau Ballet. I was already spooked by the cat thing, and the radio then plays this song, and I'm like, 'what's going on here?".