NEW Liverpool signing Darwin Nunez’s son and step-daughter showed off their new Liverpool No27 shirts just hours after he put pen to paper on his £85million deal.
The striker’s girlfriend Lorena Manas accompanied the ex-Benfica man at Anfield as he signed for the Premier League club on Tuesday.
And Lorena posted photos of her daughter Chloe, seven, and the couple’s son, also called Darwin, in their Liverpool tops.
Chloe’s shirt bore her name and little Darwin, born in January in Lorena’s native Almeria in south-east Spain, had "Daddy" printed on the back of his.
His footballer dad could be seen in the cute snap Lorena posted along the message "Our pride @darwin_n9", helping his five-month-old baby son sit upright.
The striker, 22, went online to post an emotional farewell to his old club Benfica following his transfer, worth £85m including add-ons.
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In a message on his Instagram, alongside a photo of him in his old No9 Benfica shirt, Nunez said: “I don’t have words to thank the Benfica fans. I have no doubt you will always be part of my family.
“I arrived alone but I leave with the love and support that you gave me for these last two years. My family and I will be eternally grateful.”
Sharing another photo of himself in his new Liverpool kit, Nunez wrote: “Dreams come true.”
He also shared the photo his girlfriend posted of Chloe and Darwin with their Reds shirts on, captioned: “You are my pride.”
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Lorena, whose daughter’s dad is former partner and ex-Barcelona winger Aleix Vidal, met Nunez when he played for Almeria before signing for Benfica in September 2020 and cemented his reputation as a prolific goalscorer.
She posted an emotional message to her children earlier this year alongside a photo showing her in hospital alongside the Uruguayan international after giving birth to their first son.
Lorena wrote: “I would like you to fall down many times and always get up because that would mean you live intensely and without fear.
“I would like you to be nice to those who are in an underprivileged situation and unforgiving with those who abuse others, that you have the courage to take your own decisions and that nobody marks out your path.”
Darwin, who is nearly ten years younger than Lorena, confessed after signing for Benfica that he dedicates all his goals to his family including his girlfriend.
The frontman, who sealed his move to Liverpool on Tuesday after flying to the UK from Portugal for a medical, calls them his “shelter.”
Some online reports have incorrectly claimed Lorena is from Uruguay.
She got to know her partner’s homeland in March in a visit which coincided with an International game.
Darwin wrote alongside a series of photos showing them together: “First time in Uruguay my love and I hope there will be many more. Thank you for so much. I love you.”
Lorena, said to have stayed on friendly terms with Lionel Messi’s wife Antonela Roccuzzo from their time in Barcelona together when she was dating Vidal, is not shy about showing off her shapely body on Instagram, regularly posting bikini selfies.
She described herself as the “luckiest mum” in the world after she found out she was going to have her second child.
Lorena is believed to have split from Aleix Vidal, now with LaLiga side Espanyol, in the spring of 2018.
Darwin, who scored 34 goals in 41 games in the 2021-22 season, is expected to earn around £120,000 a week at Liverpool.
His current lifestyle is a world away from his tough upbringing in a dirt-poor neighbourhood called El Pirata – Pirate in English – in the city of Artigas on Uruguay’s borders with Argentina and Brazil.
The footballer has admitted in interviews to going to bed hungry growing up.
In one, he said: “Yes, in solidarity I went to bed with my stomach empty but the person who went to bed with her belly empty most was my mum.
“She made sure my brother and I ate first. My mum used to go to bed without sitting with us at dinner time. I will never forget where I come from.”
Mum-of-two Silvia Ribeiro used to collect bottles she then sold for cash so her children could eat. Darwin’s dad Bibiano Nunez worked in construction but earned very little.
Darwin’s brother Junior, himself a promising footballer when he was younger, is believed to have given up his dreams of becoming a professional because of the family’s dire financial situation when they were growing up.
Uruguayan newspapers have called Darwin’s rise to the top of football as an “extraordinary story of overcoming adversity.”
On his sibling’s decision to abandon his dreams of playing football, when both were with Uruguayan club Penarol, Nunez said: “My brother was training with Penarol’s first team but he had to quit because of life things, family problems.
“I was going to return to Artigas as well but he said to me: ‘Stay, you have a future here, but I’m leaving… he gave me my opportunity.”
He added in another interview in his homeland when he was just about to sign for then-second division Spanish side Almeria: “I come from a working-class family.
“My dad worked in construction and when I didn’t have boots he tried to look for some and buy some so I could play football.
“He had to work eight or nine hours to buy me things and put food on the table. My mother was a housewife but always went out on the streets looking for bottles to sell.”
Although Darwin wore the No9 jersey for Benfica, that number was occupied by Roberto Firmino at Anfield.
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Liverpool have given him the No27 shirt, which was recently vacated by Divock Origi.
Origi wore 27 on his back for the whole of his Liverpool career, making 176 appearances for the Reds between 2015 and 2022, scoring 41 goals.
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