The heartbreaking death of Diogo Jota

New York Times

15 hours ago

At the start, you hope it cannot be true, that it has all been a terrible misunderstanding and that something will pop up online to let us know that the internet is a wicked place when it comes to the distribution of fake news.
But then the reports start to accelerate and, waking up to the news about Diogo Jota, you realise there has been nothing on his social media accounts since the wedding photographs that he posted, lovingly, heartbreakingly, just a few hours before his life was taken away.
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'A day we will never forget,' Jota had written alongside a video montage from the ceremony in Porto, the Portuguese city where he and his childhood sweetheart, Rute Cardoso, fell in love.
One photograph shows the happy couple showing off their wedding rings. Another shows confetti fluttering in the air as they leave the church, waving to family and friends.
A post shared by Rute Cardoso 🎀 (@rutecfcardoso14)
Another photo shows the newlyweds with their three children — two sons and a baby daughter, all aged under four — and it isn't easy, seeing how happy they all were, to find the words that could ever possibly sum up all the different, jarring emotions attached to the events of the last 24 hours.
It is only a few weeks since those kids were allowed on the pitch at Anfield to join in with Liverpool's title celebrations after the final game of the Premier League season.
Jota had worn the No 20 shirt in the year that Liverpool won their 20th league championship. He and Rute, both 28, gathered their children for a family photograph in front of the Kop. Somebody brought over the trophy and the crowd cheered as the two boys, Denis and Duarte, both wearing Liverpool shirts, took turns trying to lift it off the ground.
And now, just 11 days since the wedding, other photos have made their way online from the devastating crash scene near Cernadilla, in north-west Spain, showing the burnt-out wreckage of the light-green Lamborghini Urus that had come off the road around 00.30am, local time, on Thursday.
If there was any decency, these photographs would be available only to the accident investigators and emergency workers. In the modern world, however, they had started to go viral even before the bodies of Jota and his brother, Andre Silva, had been formally identified.
Investigators are working to the theory that the car suffered a high-speed 'blowout' — a puncture to one of its rear tyres — and that when it crashed off the A-52 dual-carriageway into the central reservation, seemingly while overtaking a truck, the impact caused the vehicle to burst into flames. They accept that there may be multiple causes for the crash.
The A-52, otherwise known as the Rias Bajas highway, stretches almost 300 kilometres and the crash occurred on an unlit section, surrounded by hills and greenery, in an area that has been called 'empty Spain' because it is so rural.
As for the state of the road, who can say at this early stage whether that was a contributing factor? The road surface has, however, been a subject of criticism. Photographs have shown large potholes on certain stretches and, at the scene, The Athletic was told that parts of the carriageway were so badly affected that ambulance drivers preferred to use only the fast (left) lane rather than crossing from one side to the other.
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'I am not going into the circumstances,' Angel Blanco, a local government official, told reporters at a hastily arranged media conference. 'The car overturned, the car was burnt and the result was lethal: two young people died. There has to be an investigation.'
Jose Fernandez Blanco, the mayor of Puebla de Sanabria, told The Athletic: "For a small town like ours, these tragedies are a source of consternation, anger that such young people, in the prime of their lives, have lost their lives.
"We express all our sorrow and sympathy for the family, the parents, the wife, the children. These are difficult tragedies to deal with. To talk about it now (the state of the road)... it is not the right time. It will be the time for the expert and police reports."
Jota and his brother had left Portugal and were heading towards Santander on Spain's northern coast. Their plan was to get some rest in Benavente, midway through the journey, and then resume the drive in time to board a ferry in Santander that would take Jota to England later on Thursday.
It would have been a 300-mile drive, taking almost six hours, and the average ferry journey is 30 hours to Portsmouth on the south coast of England, still a considerable distance from Liverpool in the north west.
Why did he not fly, as would ordinarily be expected? That was because Jota had recently undergone some sort of surgery and, as such, the doctors had advised him to travel by ferry rather than the air.
As it was, they never made it as far as Benavente. The force of the collision took the Lamborghini through the roadside barriers. Trapped inside the burning wreckage, both men were declared dead at the scene.
Officials in Liverpool's media department started taking calls from journalists at around 9am and, understandably, there was not a great deal they could say at first.
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Staff had only scant details, as well as having to cope with their own grief. Message after message, call after call, was coming in. But everything had to be checked, and double-checked, before the club could make any comment and, uppermost in their minds, they knew there was a grieving family trying to take in the worst possible news.
Unfortunately for Liverpool, they have experience when it comes to public statements that combine feelings of extreme shock and horror.
This was supposed to be the summer of all summers for everyone connected with the club, basking in the warm afterglow of a title triumph and free, it seemed, to lap it all up without the restrictions that were put in force because of Covid-19 on the last occasion they finished as champions.
Instead, it might be remembered as the most challenging and traumatic summer since the horrors at Hillsborough in 1989 and the fatal crush, with the loss of 97 lives, that caused Britain's worst sporting disaster.
First, there was the title parade on May 26 when a car ploughed into the crowd in Liverpool city centre, injuring more than 100 people and resulting in a local man being charged with multiple offences alleging he had used the vehicle 'as a weapon'.
Then, just a few days before the first batch of players were due to report for pre-season training, the first reports started to filter through that something terrible had happened, more than 1,000 miles away, in the middle of the night.
Jota had been given extra time off because of his involvement in Portugal's triumphant UEFA Nations League campaign. He was a substitute on June 4 when Portugal beat the host nation, Germany, in the semi-final. Then, in the final against Spain four days later, he came off the bench again, making his 49th international appearance.
Portugal won via a penalty shootout and it was typical of Jota that, amid the celebrations, he devoted so much of his time to greeting the families and friends of other players and members of staff. One of those guests was disabled and he, in particular, was touched by Jota being so kind and welcoming. It was not a slight on the other players, but nobody was more generous with their time.
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With the wedding as well it had been a wonderful summer for him and his family. Life was good. He and his brother were reported to have eaten at Leca da Palmeira, just north of Porto along the Portuguese coast. Then, at an unspecified time, they set off on their long journey across the border.
The statement Liverpool released at 10.23am the following day described the club as 'devastated' and requested that 'the privacy of Diogo and Andre's family, friends, team-mates and club staff is respected as they try to come to terms with an unimaginable loss'.
Anfield's flags were lowered to half-mast. A book of condolence was opened and staff, including Jota's team-mates, were offered well-being support. The shop and museum will remain closed until Monday and none of the stadium tours will take place during that time.
Silva, 25, was an attacking midfielder for FC Penafiel in Portugal's second division. He, too, was on his summer break, having last played in a 0-0 draw against Chaves on May 15. 'The loss of two young lives so closely linked to the world of football fills us with pain and dismay,' his club said.
In the Spanish province of Zamora, meanwhile, the two bodies had been taken to the Institute of Legal Medicine, where DNA tests were carried out to formalise what everyone, by this stage, already knew was true.
Those tests had to be sent off to a specialist laboratory in Madrid — hence the delay in being able to make everything official — and the bodies were later transferred to a morgue in Puebla de Sanabria.
Specialist counsellors were brought in to support the relatives, including Rute, who had travelled from Portugal to be there. Her husband's agent, Joao Camacho, from Jorge Mendes' Gestifute organisation, was among those grieving with the family. Mendes arrived in the evening and, visibly emotional, told The Athletic: "I still don't believe it, I still don't believe it, this is very difficult, very difficult for me. He was a great husband, a great husband and a great professional."
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'What can anyone say at a time like this when the shock and the pain is so incredibly raw?' Arne Slot, the Liverpool manager, asked in a statement of his own. 'I wish I had the words, but I know I do not. All I have are feelings that so many people will share, about a person and a player we loved dearly and a family we care so much about.'
Tributes had poured in from all around the world, from the Portuguese prime minister to Cristiano Ronaldo, from Kenny Dalglish to Jurgen Klopp, from clubs that would ordinarily be considered rivals and, of course, from former colleagues and friends at Wolverhampton Wanderers, Jota's previous club.
Here, though, it felt important that the current head coach of Liverpool should be seen and heard on behalf of a footballer he described as 'the essence of what a Liverpool player should be'.
Jota, Slot said, was 'the person who never sought popularity but found it anyway'. He was 'not a friend to two people, a friend to everyone' and 'someone who made others feel good about themselves just by being with them'.
Above all, he was a family man: a proud husband and a doting dad. And Slot knew that already, without needing to see the wedding pictures that have made this tragedy feel even more raw and distressing.
A wake is expected to take place on Friday afternoon at Sao Cosme in Gondomar, just east of Porto, with the funeral at 10am the following day.
'The last time we spoke, I congratulated Diogo on winning the Nations League and wished him luck for his forthcoming wedding,' said Slot. 'In many ways, it was a dream summer for Diogo and his family, which makes it all the more heartbreaking that it should end like this.
'My condolences go to Diogo's wife, Rute, their three beautiful children and the parents of Diogo and Andre Silva.
'When the time is right, we will celebrate Diogo Jota, we will remember his goals and we will sing his song. For the time being, we will remember him as a unique human being and mourn his loss.
"He will never be forgotten.'
(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton/The Athletic)