Tributes pour in for Diogo Jota after Liverpool star's shocking death
The 28-year-old died alongside his younger brother Andre after their vehicle veered off a motorway in northern Spain before bursting into flames.
A product of the Pacos de Ferreira academy on the outskirts of his native Porto, Jota made his name and played the majority of his professional career in the Premier League.
His precocious talent caught the eye of Atletico Madrid, which snapped him up in 2016, but he never played a game for the Spanish club.
Instead, after a loan spell at Porto, Jota was among the first wave of Portuguese talent parachuted into England at then second-tier Wolves due to the club's connections with super-agent Jorge Mendes.
Jota's goals helped fire Wolves from the Championship to the quarterfinals of the Europa League in just three seasons.
That caught the eye of Liverpool, which splashed out £45 million ($62 million) on a transfer fee for the versatile forward even in the midst of the economic meltdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
"Exceptional player, exceptional boy," former Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp said during Jota's early days at Anfield. "He has everything that a Liverpool player in this squad needs."
Jota took little time to deliver some return on Liverpool's investment, becoming the first player in the club's history to score in his first four home games.
Once supporters were back in the stands after the pandemic, Jota's popularity was reflected in a chant proclaiming him to be better than Portuguese legend Figo, who played for Real Madrid and Barcelona during his decorated career.
Jota was a key part of the side that won the League Cup and FA Cup during the 2021-22 campaign, narrowly missing out on the Premier League and Champions League titles for what would have been an unprecedented quadruple.
In total, Jota struck 65 times in 182 appearances for the Reds, the last of which won the Merseyside derby against Everton in April to move Liverpool ever closer to a record-equaling 20th English top-flight title.
"Hard work, desire, commitment, great quality, goals," Liverpool boss Arne Slot said. "The essence of what a Liverpool player should be.
"There were also the parts that not everyone got to see. The person who never sought popularity but found it anyway. Not a friend to two people, a friend to everyone."
But not for the first time in Liverpool's rich history, tragedy has overshadowed triumph.
Jota's last public act as a Liverpool player was taking part in the trophy parade through the city, which will be remembered for a car plowing into the crowds and injuring 109 people.
Fans laid hundreds of shirts, scarves and flowers in tribute at Anfield after the news of his death.
Cristiano Ronaldo was among those to express his disbelief that his international teammate has passed.
"It makes no sense," the five-time Ballon d'Or winner posted on social media. "Rest in Peace, Diogo and Andre. We will all miss you."
Ronaldo and Jota, who won 49 caps for his country, were part of the Portugal team that won the Nations League last month.
Jota then wed his longtime partner and mother of his three children, Rute Cardoso, less than two weeks ago.
"Diogo was a not only a fantastic player, but also a great friend, a loving and caring husband and father," Klopp said.
Off the field, Jota was well-known for his passion for video games and even had his own esports team, Luna Esports.
"When the time is right, we will celebrate Diogo Jota, we will remember his goals and we will sing his song," Slot added.
"For the time being, we will remember him as a unique human being and mourn his loss. He will never be forgotten."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Today
4 hours ago
- Japan Today
Liverpool's Jota mourned by family and local people at hometown wake
Flower tributes are left outside Liverpool's Anfield Stadium after Liverpool's Portuguese soccer player Diogo Jota died in a car crash near Zamora, Spain, in Liverpool, Britain, July 4, 2025. REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY soccer By Miguel Pereira and Sergio Goncalves Hundreds of residents of Gondomar in northern Portugal filed past the bodies of former Liverpool footballer Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva at a chapel in their hometown on Friday, after their deaths in a car crash in Spain. At an earlier private wake, Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, FC Porto President Andre Villas-Boas, Portuguese Football Federation President Pedro Proenca and Jota's longtime agent Jorge Mendes joined the brothers' family including Jota's wife Rute Cardoso, who had married the footballer just weeks earlier. "It is a moment of great pain for the family, who are left anchored to this tragic accident," Proenca said as he left the wake. "Diogo was an icon for the talent that Portuguese football represents and for its ability to generate unity around a person." The brothers were believed to be driving to a ferry in Spain to travel to the UK when their Lamborghini veered off the road and burst into flames after midnight on Thursday. Police said they suspected a tyre had burst. Silva was also a footballer, with Penafiel in the Portuguese second division. Their funeral is expected to take place on Saturday at a nearby church at 10 a.m. local time (0800 GMT), the office of Gondomar's mayor said. The death of forward Jota at the age of 28 has jolted the world of football, with tributes pouring in from former teammates, clubs, national leaders and fans. "Diogo was a silent hero for everything he represented on and off the pitch," Villas-Boas said as he left the wake. "These are tragic days, days for reflection, and may the memory of these two athletes, these two great men, live on," the former Chelsea manager added. Outside Liverpool's Anfield stadium fans left flowers, scarves and handwritten notes, many from children. "I never thought there would be something that would frighten me off going back to Liverpool after the (summer) break," Liverpool teammate Mohamed Salah said on Instagram. "Teammates come and go but not like this. It's going to be extremely difficult to accept that Diogo won't be there when we go back," he added. Football clubs including Paris St Germain -- who have several Portugal internationals in their squad -- Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Real Madrid observed a moment of silence during training for their matches at the Club World Cup in the United States. MOURNING HIS FRIEND Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca said on Thursday that forward Pedro Neto was weighing up whether to play in Friday's quarter-final against Palmeiras, as the Portuguese international mourned the tragic death of his close friend. Jota's manager at Liverpool, Arne Slot, said in a statement on Thursday that his thoughts were with his family. "My message to them is very clear – you will never walk alone," Slot said, using the words of the team's anthem. "For us as a club, the sense of shock is absolute. Diogo was not just our player, he was a loved one to all of us. He was a teammate, a colleague, a workmate and in all of those roles he was very special," the Dutchman added. In Gondomar, a town of about 160,000 people in the Porto metropolitan area that is known for artisanal gold and filigree jewellery, residents were struggling to come to terms with the sudden death of a local hero. At the Diogo Jota Academy in Gondomar – whose motto is "It's not important where we come from, but where we are going" – people placed candles and flowers, as well as scarves and shirts from the clubs he played for and from the Portuguese national team in tribute to the player. Jota opened the academy in 2022 for children aged six to nine at the Gondomar Football Club where he himself played for 10 years as a child. It was at Gondomar's high school that he met his wife. They began dating aged 15 when in the same class and she became a pillar in his life. When they were 19, they moved to Madrid together, when Jota was transferred from the small Portuguese club Pacos de Ferreira to Atletico Madrid. "Besides being his girlfriend and best friend, I'm his number one fan," Cardoso told the newspaper 'A Bola' at the time. Jota was making his way back to Liverpool by car after he was told he should avoid plane travel for up to six weeks following lung surgery to address a fractured rib, his physiotherapist Miguel Goncalves told broadcaster Now late on Thursday. Goncalves said Jota was recovering well from the pneumothorax surgery and that he had planned to take a ferry to the UK from Spain. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Japan Times
13 hours ago
- Japan Times
Arsenal parts ways with defender Tomiyasu after injury-ridden season
Japan defender Takehiro Tomiyasu is leaving Arsenal by mutual agreement after playing only six minutes last season due to a knee injury, the club said on Friday. The 26-year-old suffered multiple knee and calf injuries during his four years with the club, some of which sidelined him for months. He remains sidelined since undergoing knee surgery in February. "Unfortunately, injuries have limited Tomi's time on the pitch in the past two seasons, with the defender making just one substitute appearance last season," Arsenal said in a statement. "It was therefore mutually agreed to end Tomi's contract in order for him to start a new chapter in his career." The former Bologna player made 65 Premier League appearances for Arsenal, scoring two goals. Arsenal, which has finished second in the league for the last three seasons, begins its 2025-26 campaign at Manchester United on Aug. 17.
Japan Times
17 hours ago
- Japan Times
Blistering heat and empty chairs mar U.N.'s flagship development event
Brutal heat scorched Spain this week, a blistering reminder of the climate change that is battering the world's poorest countries — stretching their finances even as government debt climbs to new heights. But at a once-a-decade U.N. development finance conference in Seville, two key ingredients were in less abundance: money and power. Just one Group of Seven leader — French President Emmanuel Macron — attended the event, where he and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez addressed rooms with dozens of empty chairs. Organizers initially said they expected 70 heads of state; that was whittled to 50 as the conference got underway. Back in Washington, Paris, London and Berlin, rich-country leaders are slashing aid and cutting bilateral lending in a pivot to defense spending and rising debt at home. "The mood is ... I would say realistic, but also a sense of unity and of pragmatism," said Alvaro Lario, president of the International Fund of Agricultural Development, adding that the question on everyone's mind this week was how to do more with less. "How can we come together, or think out of the box, or create new type of ways of really stretching it more?" The Financing For Development meeting is a flagship U.N. conference, charting the trajectory to help tackle changes the world must make to tax policies, aid spending or key areas such as debt, health and education. Its outcomes guide global aid funding and U.N. policies for the decade to come. Few disagree over the need for action. Hundred-year floods and storms are happening with alarming regularity, and rising debt-servicing costs are siphoning money away from health, education and infrastructure spending in the developing world. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez delivers a speech during the close of the U.N. conference in Seville on Thursday. | AFP-Jiji But even top developing-world leaders such as Mia Mottley, the Barbados prime minister and a prominent global climate champion, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, currently chairing the Group of 20 major economies, backed out of the event at the last minute. The media room was stacked with Spanish press gossiping about a domestic political scandal while disillusioned civil-society leaders stalked the halls, upset with the watered-down agenda and the lack of fiscal or political firepower. "We are facing a backsliding of many agendas that we had advanced a few years ago," said Henrique Frota, director of ABONG, a Brazilian association of NGOs. "Developed countries are reducing their investment in (official development assistance) and European countries are not fulfilling their commitment ... they are giving less and less money right now for every kind of agenda." Event leaders were relieved to produce an outcome document — despite gnawing fears in the past months that Washington would torpedo any deal. In the end, U.S. officials backed out altogether. "The entire community was very afraid of coming here because one country wasn't attending," said U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Marcos Neto. "But the document ended up working out ... I'm leaving happy, with more optimism than I thought I would leave with." Neto highlighted significant steps toward implementing climate and development goals, including the Seville Platform and multiple agreements from public and private sectors to leverage funds for the biggest possible impact. A woman carries an umbrella near Las Setas during a heat wave in Seville on July 2. | REUTERS The Seville Commitment included tripling multilateral lending capacity, debt relief, a push to boost tax-to-gross domestic product ratios to at least 15%, and get more rich countries to let the International Monetary Fund use "special drawing rights" money for countries that need it most. But in Seville, only host nation Spain signed on to commit 50% of its special drawing rights funds for the purpose. U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed acknowledged that the attendance was not as star-studded as hoped, and that public funds are under pressure. "But there's innovative financing, there's the private sector, there's the triple lending of MDBs... so the resources are there," she said, referring to multilateral development banks. "We just have to have the political will to leverage through these mechanisms that have come out of the platform of action and continue moving with them." U.S. President Donald Trump, despite his country's absence, loomed large over the event; his climate change skepticism, hostility toward diversity initiatives and pledge to review U.S. participation in multilateral organizations made some keen to strip out references to climate change and rebrand initiatives as focused on resilience, education or health. Still, some said the gloomy backdrop should not deter leaders focused on progress. "Ultimately the important thing is doing it," said Jose Vinals, a former group chairman of Standard Chartered and cochair of both the FFD4 Business Steering Committee and the Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance. "The private sector is, for the most part, still willing to walk the talk."
