[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"header-nav":3,"footer-nav":29,"article-cody-gakpo-personal-tragedy-unborn-son-liverpool":82,"category-counts-nav":96,"related-cody-gakpo-personal-tragedy-unborn-son-liverpool":106},[4,8,11,14,17,20,23,26],{"label":5,"to":6,"exact":7},"Home","\u002F",true,{"label":9,"to":10},"World Cup","\u002Fworldcup",{"label":12,"to":13},"Standings","\u002Fstandings",{"label":15,"to":16},"Football","\u002Fcategory\u002Ffootball",{"label":18,"to":19},"Basketball","\u002Fcategory\u002Fbasketball",{"label":21,"to":22},"Tennis","\u002Fcategory\u002Ftennis",{"label":24,"to":25},"F1","\u002Fcategory\u002Ff1",{"label":27,"to":28},"Long Reads","\u002Fcategory\u002Flong-reads",{"brand":30,"columns":32,"tagline":80,"copyright":81},{"description":31},"In-depth sports journalism covering football, basketball, tennis, F1, and beyond. Daily analysis, long reads, and expert opinion.",[33,51,59],{"heading":34,"links":35},"Leagues",[36,39,42,45,48],{"label":37,"to":38},"Premier League","\u002Ftag\u002Fpremier-league",{"label":40,"to":41},"La Liga","\u002Ftag\u002Fla-liga",{"label":43,"to":44},"NBA","\u002Ftag\u002Fnba",{"label":46,"to":47},"Formula 1","\u002Ftag\u002Fformula-1",{"label":49,"to":50},"Champions League","\u002Ftag\u002Fchampions-league",{"heading":52,"links":53},"Content",[54,56,57],{"label":55,"to":16},"Analysis",{"label":27,"to":28},{"label":58,"to":16},"Data & Stats",{"heading":60,"links":61},"Company",[62,65,68,71,74,77],{"label":63,"to":64},"Terms of Service","\u002Fservice",{"label":66,"to":67},"Privacy Policy","\u002Fprivacy",{"label":69,"to":70},"Editorial Policy","\u002Feditorial",{"label":72,"to":73},"Contact Us","\u002Fcontact",{"label":75,"to":76},"About Us","\u002Fabout",{"label":78,"to":79},"Website Disclaimer","\u002Fdisclaimer","Built for the love of sport","© SportPulse. All rights reserved.",{"title":83,"slug":84,"category":85,"badge":86,"author":87,"excerpt":88,"date":89,"readTime":90,"image":91,"imageAlt":83,"tags":92,"body":94,"_path":95},"Beyond the Pitch: Gakpo's Grief and Football's Human Reality","cody-gakpo-personal-tragedy-unborn-son-liverpool","football","Feature","Sarah Martinez","Cody Gakpo and partner Noa van der Bij announce the loss of their unborn son, reminding football that life extends far beyond the game.","2026-06-27 18:17:11","6 min read","https:\u002F\u002Fichef.bbci.co.uk\u002Face\u002Fstandard\u002F976\u002Fcpsprodpb\u002F780e\u002Flive\u002Fbcc915b0-7249-11f1-a6b1-e743cbb66042.jpg",[37,49,93],"Eredivisie","## When the Spotlight Doesn't Matter\n\nThere is a moment in every footballer's life when the roar of 60,000 fades to nothing. When the net doesn't matter. When the badge on the shirt means less than the people waiting at home. For Cody Gakpo, that moment arrived this week with a weight no training session, no tactical briefing, no Champions League night could prepare him for.\n\nNoa van der Bij, Gakpo's partner, announced publicly that the couple have lost their unborn son. The Dutch forward, who has represented Liverpool and the Netherlands with distinction since bursting onto the European stage, has asked for privacy during what is the most devastating chapter of his life away from football.\n\n> \"We kindly ask for respect and privacy during this incredibly difficult time.\" \n\nNo words of analysis can soften that. No tactical breakdown matters here. But there is something worth saying about the world in which Gakpo exists, the one that demands everything from young men and then expects them to perform on camera as though nothing has changed.\n\n---\n\n## The Weight Behind the Shirt\n\nGakpo is **25 years old**. He arrived at Liverpool from PSV Eindhoven in **January 2023**, a move that represented the culmination of a meteoric rise through Dutch football. He was the jewel of the Eredivisie, a versatile attacker who could play across the front line, the man PSV built their ambitions around, the player Louis van Gaal trusted at the **2022 World Cup** in Qatar.\n\nAt Anfield, his transition was not seamless. Adapting to the Premier League's intensity, finding his role in a squad reshaping itself under new management, dealing with the pressure of a **reported £37 million fee**. These are the standard narratives. The ones that fill columns and podcasts and halftime discussions.\n\nNone of them account for what is happening now.\n\nWhat makes this moment so jarring is the timing. Gakpo has been finding his footing at Liverpool with increasing authority. His movement has sharpened. His confidence in the final third has grown visibly. There is a version of this season where Gakpo's personal trajectory and professional trajectory move in harmony, where the best football of his career coincides with the happiest chapter of his life.\n\nThat version has been shattered.\n\n---\n\n## Football's Awkward Relationship With Grief\n\nThe sport has never handled personal tragedy well. It is an industry built on relentless scheduling, on the assumption that bodies and minds will simply keep producing. Matches come every three to four days. Training resumes the morning after. Media obligations don't pause for funeral arrangements.\n\nLiverpool, to their credit, have historically shown more empathy than most institutions in elite football. The club supported **Luis Díaz** through the kidnapping ordeal involving his parents in Colombia. They wrapped their arms around **Diogo Jota** through personal difficulties. The city itself carries a cultural understanding of collective grief that few footballing communities can match.\n\n> The question is never whether a club will issue a statement of support. The question is whether the infrastructure around a grieving player genuinely allows him space to grieve, or whether the machine simply adjusts its schedule and waits.\n\nThe Netherlands national team will face a similar calculation. Gakpo has been a central figure in their plans, a player Ronald Koeman has relied on in qualifying campaigns and tournament football. Whether he features in upcoming international fixtures is a decision that should belong entirely to Gakpo and his family, but history suggests that pressure will quietly build regardless.\n\n---\n\n### What Other Athletes Have Shown Us\n\nThis is not the first time a footballer has navigated parenthood's darkest reality under public scrutiny. The conversation has expanded in recent years, slowly, imperfectly, but it has expanded.\n\n**Sergio Agüero** spoke about the emotional toll of separation from his son during his playing career. **Andros Townsend** has been vocal about mental health struggles following personal loss. **Ben Chilwell** and others have used social media to share grief, though the responses to such openness remain mixed.\n\nWhat has shifted is the willingness of footballers' partners to speak on their own terms. Van der Bij's announcement was made with dignity and clarity. No club intermediary, no carefully worded PR statement sanitized beyond recognition. A person sharing the most painful truth of her life and asking simply to be left alone.\n\n---\n\n## The Liverpool Dimension\n\nFrom a purely football perspective, Gakpo's absence or diminished state creates questions that Liverpool's coaching staff will need to answer. He has been used as a **central forward, a left winger, and even in deeper creative roles** during his time at the club. His versatility is one of the qualities that made him such an attractive signing.\n\nArne Slot, the current Liverpool manager who knows the Dutch football ecosystem intimately, will understand better than most what Gakpo is going through. The cultural context matters. The Dutch football world is smaller, tighter. Slot managed in the Eredivisie. He has watched Gakpo's development from closer range than almost anyone in the Liverpool setup.\n\nThat understanding could prove invaluable. Not as a tactical tool, not as a way to extract performance from a grieving player, but as a genuine human connection.\n\nLiverpool's squad depth in attacking positions offers some buffer. **Mohamed Salah, Luis Díaz, Darwin Núñez, and Diogo Jota** provide genuine competition and rotation options. The club does not need to rush Gakpo back into contention for any fixture. There is no match on earth that outweighs what he and Van der Bij are living through.\n\n---\n\n## Beyond the Scoreline\n\nThere is a broader conversation embedded here that football continues to approach with caution. The sport's culture of stoicism, the idea that professionals must compartmentalize grief and perform regardless, is slowly being challenged but remains deeply embedded.\n\nYoung players in particular face unique pressures. Gakpo is at an age where many of his peers are starting families, navigating the gap between personal milestones and professional demands. When that gap becomes a void, the support structures around athletes matter enormously.\n\nLiverpool's player welfare department, the Professional Footballers' Association, the KNVB's own support systems. These institutions exist. Whether they function with the sensitivity and patience that grief actually requires is a question worth asking, even if the answers are uncomfortable.\n\n> The test of a football club is not how it celebrates a player's goals. It is how it behaves when a player cannot even think about football.\n\n---\n\n## What Comes Next\n\nGakpo will return when he is ready. There is no timeline for grief, no rehabilitation protocol, no medical staff clearing him for full training on a specific date. He will walk back onto a pitch when the world makes sense again, or at least when it makes enough sense to chase a ball.\n\nIn the meantime, the football world's obligation is simple: respect the boundary that has been drawn. Noa van der Bij asked for privacy. Cody Gakpo asked for privacy. The least the sport can do is honor that request without turning their tragedy into content.\n\nThe goals will come again. The assists, the runs behind the defensive line, the celebrations at the Kop End. All of it will return. But some things exist beyond the reach of football, beyond the commentary, beyond the transfer valuations and the tactical assessments.\n\nA family is grieving. The sport can wait.","\u002Farticles\u002Fcody-gakpo-personal-tragedy-unborn-son-liverpool",[97,98,99,100,85,101,102,103,104,105],"analysis","basketball","cricket","f1","general","golf","mma","long-reads","tennis",[107,118,130],{"id":108,"stem":108,"path":109,"title":110,"category":85,"badge":55,"badgeType":111,"author":87,"authorRole":112,"authorInitials":113,"date":114,"readTime":90,"image":115,"imageAlt":110,"tags":116,"excerpt":117},"james-rice-fitness-sweat-england-panama-group-finale","\u002Farticles\u002Fjames-rice-fitness-sweat-england-panama-group-finale","Fitness Race: James and Rice Sweat Over Panama Decider","category","Transfer Correspondent","SM","2026-06-24 16:16:44","https:\u002F\u002Fichef.bbci.co.uk\u002Face\u002Fstandard\u002F976\u002Fcpsprodpb\u002Ff3d3\u002Flive\u002Fa6699ca0-6fe1-11f1-b763-7be8e457290d.jpg","World Cup, Premier League","England's knockout prospects hinge on late fitness tests for Reece James and Declan Rice ahead of the Panama group finale.",{"id":119,"stem":119,"path":120,"title":121,"category":85,"badge":86,"badgeType":111,"author":122,"authorRole":123,"authorInitials":124,"date":125,"readTime":126,"image":127,"imageAlt":121,"tags":128,"excerpt":129},"england-mexico-world-cup-storm-threat-scheduling-crisis","\u002Farticles\u002Fengland-mexico-world-cup-storm-threat-scheduling-crisis","Storm Clouds Gather as England-Mexico Knockout Tie Faces Rescheduling","Elena Rossi","SportPulse Contributor","ER","2026-07-03 19:00:39","8 min read","https:\u002F\u002Fichef.bbci.co.uk\u002Face\u002Fstandard\u002F976\u002Fcpsprodpb\u002F9f30\u002Flive\u002F6152b0e0-770f-11f1-beb9-b5355696e847.jpg","World Cup, England, Mexico","A looming storm system threatens to disrupt England's World Cup last-16 clash with Mexico, forcing organizers into a tactical scheduling pivot.",{"id":131,"stem":131,"path":132,"title":133,"category":85,"badge":86,"badgeType":111,"author":87,"authorRole":112,"authorInitials":113,"date":134,"readTime":90,"image":135,"imageAlt":133,"tags":9,"excerpt":136},"world-cup-mystery-players-identification-game","\u002Farticles\u002Fworld-cup-mystery-players-identification-game","The Beautiful Game's Beautiful Mystery: Decoding World Cup's Anonymous Heroes","2026-07-09 06:05:12","\u002Fimages\u002Farticles\u002Fworld-cup-mystery-players-identification-game.webp","Every World Cup creates legends whose names fade. Here is why identifying mystery tournament stars has become football's most addictive treasure hunt."]