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Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Family and football unite to bid Diogo Jota farewell
Players pay tribute to Diogo Jota and his brother at the Club World Cup on Friday in Orlando (Paul ELLIS) Close family and friends and stars of the world of football will gather Saturday for the funeral of Liverpool and Portugal forward Diogo Jota and his brother 48 hours after the siblings' car crash. Jota, 28, and Andre Silva, 25, were killed on Thursday after their vehicle veered off a motorway in northwestern Spain and became engulfed in flames, a week after the Portugal forward had got married. Advertisement The funeral, which begins at 0900 GMT, is being held in his hometown of Gondomar, near Porto. The service will be conducted by the bishop of Porto, local media report. On Friday hundreds attended a wake for the brothers. Among those who came to offer their condolences were a childhood friend, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, Jota's agent Jorge Mendes and Porto club president Andre Villas-Boas. "Football is truly in mourning. Diogo was an icon of the talent Portuguese football represents," said football federation chief Pedro Proenca. Close family and friends including the parents paid their respects at Friday's wake first, with the grandfather propped up by two others to help him enter the chapel. Advertisement - 'Rest in peace' - Mourners arrived carrying wreaths of flowers, some sobbing audibly, before the wake was opened to members of the public. The death of the Portugal international and his brother has triggered an outpouring of emotion in football, and beyond. Liverpool opened a book of condolences and lowered flags to half-mast, with dozens of supporters laying a sea of flowers, balloons, Jota shirts, and scarves with the message "Rest in peace Diogo Jota", outside Anfield. At the Diogo Jota football academy, close to Gondomar SC where the ex-Porto and Atletico Madrid player took his first steps in the game, well-wishers created a memorial with flowers, scarves, candles and shirts. Advertisement "Thank you, Diogo Jota," read a child's handwritten message. Pedro Neves, who was friends with Jota at school in Gondomar, said he "will remember him as someone who was very friendly, very courteous, who loved everyone, who always had a smile on his face". "He left us too young, it's not fair. But that's how life is sometimes," Neves, 31, told AFP. Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, who brought Jota to the Reds in 2020, has said he was "heartbroken" while the club spoke of an "unimaginable loss". Klopp's successor at Anfield, Arne Slot, said everyone associated with the club owed it to Jota to "stand together and be there for one another". Advertisement Jota was remembered at the Club World Cup in the United States on Friday, with a one-minute silence held at the quarter-final between Brazil's Fluminense and Saudi Arabia's Al Hilal in Orlando. Portuguese and UK media reported Jota was driving to the northern Spanish port of Santander to take a ferry to England where Liverpool were due to start training on Friday, avoiding a flight on medical advice after a recent lung operation. Liverpool's Egyptian striker Mohamed Salah said the death of his teammate had left him "frightened" to return to the club as the Premier League champions postponed the return of some players for pre-season training. Jota had married his partner Rute Cardoso on June 22, posting a video of their wedding on Instagram just hours before the accident. They had three children. bur-tsc/mdm/nr/mw
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Family and football unite to bid Diogo Jota farewell
Players pay tribute to Diogo Jota and his brother at the Club World Cup on Friday in Orlando (Paul ELLIS) Close family and friends and stars of the world of football will gather Saturday for the funeral of Liverpool and Portugal forward Diogo Jota and his brother 48 hours after the siblings' car crash. Jota, 28, and Andre Silva, 25, were killed on Thursday after their vehicle veered off a motorway in northwestern Spain and became engulfed in flames, a week after the Portugal forward had got married. Advertisement The funeral, which begins at 0900 GMT, is being held in his hometown of Gondomar, near Porto. The service will be conducted by the bishop of Porto, local media report. On Friday hundreds attended a wake for the brothers. Among those who came to offer their condolences were a childhood friend, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, Jota's agent Jorge Mendes and Porto club president Andre Villas-Boas. "Football is truly in mourning. Diogo was an icon of the talent Portuguese football represents," said football federation chief Pedro Proenca. Close family and friends including the parents paid their respects at Friday's wake first, with the grandfather propped up by two others to help him enter the chapel. Advertisement - 'Rest in peace' - Mourners arrived carrying wreaths of flowers, some sobbing audibly, before the wake was opened to members of the public. The death of the Portugal international and his brother has triggered an outpouring of emotion in football, and beyond. Liverpool opened a book of condolences and lowered flags to half-mast, with dozens of supporters laying a sea of flowers, balloons, Jota shirts, and scarves with the message "Rest in peace Diogo Jota", outside Anfield. At the Diogo Jota football academy, close to Gondomar SC where the ex-Porto and Atletico Madrid player took his first steps in the game, well-wishers created a memorial with flowers, scarves, candles and shirts. Advertisement "Thank you, Diogo Jota," read a child's handwritten message. Pedro Neves, who was friends with Jota at school in Gondomar, said he "will remember him as someone who was very friendly, very courteous, who loved everyone, who always had a smile on his face". "He left us too young, it's not fair. But that's how life is sometimes," Neves, 31, told AFP. Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, who brought Jota to the Reds in 2020, has said he was "heartbroken" while the club spoke of an "unimaginable loss". Klopp's successor at Anfield, Arne Slot, said everyone associated with the club owed it to Jota to "stand together and be there for one another". Advertisement Jota was remembered at the Club World Cup in the United States on Friday, with a one-minute silence held at the quarter-final between Brazil's Fluminense and Saudi Arabia's Al Hilal in Orlando. Portuguese and UK media reported Jota was driving to the northern Spanish port of Santander to take a ferry to England where Liverpool were due to start training on Friday, avoiding a flight on medical advice after a recent lung operation. Liverpool's Egyptian striker Mohamed Salah said the death of his teammate had left him "frightened" to return to the club as the Premier League champions postponed the return of some players for pre-season training. Jota had married his partner Rute Cardoso on June 22, posting a video of their wedding on Instagram just hours before the accident. They had three children. bur-tsc/mdm/nr/mw
RNZ News
04-07-2025
- Sport
- RNZ News
Liverpool's Jota mourned by family and local people at hometown wake
People queue outside the funeral chapel for the public wake of Liverpool's Portuguese forward Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva in Gondomar, on the outskirts of Porto, on July 4, 2025. Photo: MIGUEL RIOPA Hundreds of residents of Gondomar in northern Portugal have filed past the bodies of former Liverpool footballer Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva at a chapel in their hometown, 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 10am local time, 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. Well-wishers leave flowers, scarves and shirts at a memorial set up close to Anfield football ground for their Portuguese forward Diogo Jota in Liverpool, north-west England 4 July, 2025. Photo: MARK NAFTALIN "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. 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. - Reuters
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Dozens pay tribute to Liverpool star Diogo Jota in Portugal
People wait outside the funeral chapel for the public wake of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva in Gondomar (MIGUEL RIOPA) Dozens of Portuguese from the president to a childhood friend grieved for Diogo Jota in his hometown on Friday after the Liverpool star and his brother's death in a car crash. Jota, 28, and Andre Silva, 25, were killed on Thursday after their vehicle veered off a motorway in northwestern Spain and became engulfed in flames, just after the Portugal forward had got married. Advertisement A wake for the siblings was organised at a chapel in the Porto suburb of Gondomar on Friday before the funeral scheduled for 10:00 am (0900 GMT) on Saturday. Close family and friends including the parents paid their respects first, with the grandfather propped up by two others to help him enter. Mourners arrived carrying wreaths of flowers, some sobbing audibly, before the wake was opened to members of the public. Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, Jota's agent Jorge Mendes and Porto club president Andre Villas-Boas were among the notable attendees paying condolences. Advertisement "Football is truly in mourning. Diogo was an icon of the talent Portuguese football represents," said football federation chief Pedro Proenca. At the Diogo Jota football academy, close to Gondomar SC where the ex-Porto and Atletico Madrid player took his first steps in the game, well-wishers created a memorial with flowers, scarves, candles and shirts. "Thank you, Diogo Jota," read a child's handwritten message, while mourners stood in silent contemplation. Francisco Goncalves, a 66-year-old judicial officer, was still coming to terms with what he called a "senseless disaster... no one understands what happened". Advertisement - 'Left us too young' - Pedro Neves, who was friends with Jota at school in Gondomar, said he "will remember him as someone who was very friendly, very courteous, who loved everyone, who always had a smile on his face". "He left us too young, it's not fair. But that's how life is sometimes," Neves, 31, told AFP. At Porto's Estadio do Dragao, flags flew at half-mast and a photograph of Jota smiling and wearing the club's shirt was projected on a big screen. Liverpool have opened a book of condolences and lowered flags to half-mast, with dozens of supporters laying a sea of flowers, balloons and Jota shirts outside Anfield. Advertisement A similar shrine was set up at the Molineux ground of his former Premier League club Wolverhampton Wanderers. UK media reported Liverpool had postponed the start of pre-season training, while the reigning English champions confirmed ticket sales for a July 13 friendly had been suspended. In London, Wimbledon relaxed its strict white-only dress code to allow Portuguese tennis player Francisco Cabral to wear a black ribbon in tribute to Jota. bur-tsc/imm/mw
Sky News
03-07-2025
- Sport
- Sky News
Diogo Jota's joyous final weeks make his death even more devastating to comprehend
The joy that filled the final weeks of Diogo Jota's life makes his death even more devastating to comprehend for his family and millions of fans worldwide. The most illustrious title of his career was won in May, when he paraded through Liverpool with his teammates and the Premier League trophy. More success came with Portugal as he won the Nations League for a second time alongside Cristiano Ronaldo in June. And then came the bliss at marrying his childhood love Rute Cardoso, watched by their three children. Just yesterday Jota posted a video from the ceremony on social media alongside the message "a day we will never forget". The happiest of days was remembered before the tragedy that killed Jota and his brother Andre Felipe in northwest Spain. Brothers - whose careers both developed at their hometown club, Porto - so tragically dying together. "Football has lost two great men," Porto president Andre Villas-Boas said, as fans descended on the club's stadium to mourn. At Anfield, Liverpool fans are grieving the versatile forward who was so often in the shadow of Mohamed Salah, as he was under Ronaldo at Portugal. But he knew how to sacrifice stardom to contribute to the squad. The last of his 65 Liverpool goals was the winner in the Merseyside derby against neighbours Everton in April - helping the club become the record 20-time champions of England. A Premier League winners' medal joining those from the FA Cup and League Cup, won by the 28-year-old after he joined the Reds in 2020. It was Wolverhampton Wanderers who gave Jota a platform to shine in England after he joined from Atletico Madrid. Promotion was gained to the Premier League in 2018, and they more than just avoided relegation, but secured back-to-back top-seven finishes. Jota was a reason why. 0:48 He was also why Wolves could embark on such a memorable European campaign, and scored two hat-tricks in the run-up to the Europa League quarter-finals in 2020. "The memories he created will never be forgotten," Wolves said. For the football world, the loss of such a talent so young will be hard to comprehend.
