CNN
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There’s Diogo Jota’s performance, which many Liverpool supporters remember more than anything else.
In October 2022, Jota and the Company faced the Manchester City team as the Reds struggled so badly with their form, and that season achieved historic high notes.
A month before the 2022 Men’s World Cup – Tournament Jota later said it was “one of his dreams” – many players may have taken it easily, fearing that they would injure themselves.
Not what.
The Portuguese forward did not contribute to goals or assists, but he played 100 minutes and fought to win the ball on countless occasions. Liverpool won 1-0, but Jota’s tireless performance left him injured and fell in the final minute. He continues to miss the World Cup.
With the tournament scheduled to reappear next year, it is highly likely that Jota has finally made that dream come true in 2026.
The opportunity, along with a much more important opportunity to experience life as a young father and as a newlywed, was brutally taken away from the age of 28 on Thursday morning, when he and his brother Andre Silva died in a car accident in northwestern Spain.
Hunger and courage
Maybe Jota would have avoided an injury to Manchester City if he had been away from a difficult tackle. But that’s not the kind of player he was.
“The way he played the game was full of this kind of denial energy. … He hunted the ball aggressively and actively hunted the space,” Anfield Rap CEO and host Neil Atkinson told CNN Sports’ Amanda Davis.
Jota’s technical gifts are surprisingly obvious at times, but not on the level of some of his teammates. But what made him such a popular figure in Merseyside was his willingness to fight, and it was his difficult to go to Liverpool games in the last few years, and the reason he didn’t listen to the famous songs of the crowd for him.
“They loved the work ethic, their pure desires and the fact that he had almost a mischievous feeling about him, like his goal,” Atkinson said. “And I think I loved him so much to his supporters.”
Portugal International was speaking out about his philosophy of hard work on the pitch.
“As a fan – I was a fan myself – you want to watch for the players fighting for the club, for the badge they love,” he said in a video released by Liverpool on Thursday following news of his death.
In the photo: I remember Diogo Jota
However, his tenacity was not limited to his attitude towards the field. As a young player struggling with the game at Atlético Madrid, one of the world’s biggest clubs, the forward has chosen to join Wolverhampton Wanderlers.
His courage was rewarded as he became one of the best players on the team and eventually signed Liverpool in 2020.
It appears Jota has found a certain relative in Liverpool in a city where he often had to fight like him.
After the riots began in Liverpool in 1981 as a result of tensions between the police and the black community, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was secretly urged by finance minister Jeffrey Howe to seek a policy of “controlled decline” by referring to the city.
According to Howe, spending public money in town is like “trying to make the water flow uphill.”
Eight years later, when the Hillsboro disaster claimed the lives of 97 Liverpool supporters in the FA Cup semi-finals, the city felt once again bear the brunt of the facility.
Both local police and several sections of British media have denounced Liverpool fans. Despite the tireless campaign by the victims’ families, it took until 2016 to investigate to determine that the dead were illegally killed and that fans’ actions did not cause or contribute to the disaster.
Liverpool is a club that has more than a significant portion of the tragedy. Less than six weeks later, cars rammed into a large number of people in the parade to celebrate the club’s Premier League title victory, causing dozens of people, including children.
Facing this latest tragedy on Thursday morning, the city is grieving once more.
“The only way to get through this is to put it together,” Atkinson said.
The importance of that gathering was echoed by another Liverpool fan, Sally, who didn’t give her last name when he spoke to CNN Sports’ Matias Grez outside Anfield on Thursday.
“You stick together because that’s the only way it works,” she said. “It’s the spirit of the community. It’s not just Liverpool, it’s Everton, there’s a bunch of people like this, rivals aside.
Certainly, in the hundreds of scarves, flowers and messages left for his brother outside Jota and Anfield, we saw items built by fans of Liverpool’s local rival Everton.
“I wasn’t really huge for social media so I wasn’t seeing what I was looking right in front of my eyes right now,” another supporter, Simon Walker, told CNN in connection with the tribute that remained at the stadium. “But that’s because that’s how this club and this city operates.”
Jota – A man who grew up in a small town outside of Porto is 886 miles (1,426 kilometers) away, which is an understatement to suit Liverpool well.
Its affinity has been extended to some of Portugal’s lesser entertainment. In a social media tribute post, former teammates Andy Robertson and Kaoimhin Keleher both referenced surprises at Jota’s darts and horse racing fun, with Robertson jokingly calling him “Diogo McJota.”
“You can relate to him,” said Sally, a Liverpool supporter who spoke to CNN on Thursday. “You can say he was a realistic companion. He was very humble. He wasn’t flashy. He was a very family man.
“We’re all like family, so I think that’s what makes everyone in town relate to him.”
Funeral services for the 28-year-old and his brother were held on Saturday morning in his hometown of Gondomar. The pain that their family, Jota’s wife and three children are experiencing is far beyond that of those who marveled from afar at his performance on the football pitch.
However, it is proof of Jota’s spirit and tenacity that Liverpool also grieves the loss of one of his most beloved sons.
