GONDOMAR, Portugal: Liverpool and Portugal forward Diogo Jota and his brother were laid to rest on Saturday in their hometown, just days after the pair died in a car crash that shocked the football world.
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.
Just hours before the accident, Jota had posted a video of his June 22 wedding to partner Rute Cardoso, with whom he shared three children.
Football stars joined family and friends at the funeral in his hometown of Gondomar, near Porto and conducted by the bishop of Porto.
A number of teammates from the national side, including Bernardo Silva, Bruno Fernandes, Danilo Pereira and Joao Felix, as well as coach Roberto Martinez attended, though national skipper Cristiano Ronaldo was not present.
Liverpool Virgil van Dijk bore a garlanded wreath of red flowers in the form of a Liverpool shirt bearing Jota’s number 20.
Friday evening had seen Van Dijk, several players including Liverpool’s Uruguay international Darwin Nunez and Liverpool coach Arne Slot meet with Jota’s family and attend a wake for the deceased 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.
Jota formerly played with Porto.
“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 aided by two others to help him enter the chapel.
Friday night, British rock band Oasis played their song “Live Forever” in tribute to Jota at a concert in Cardiff marking a return to touring after 16 years.
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.
“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.”
Slot, who succeeded Klopp last year at Anfield, said everyone associated with the club owed it to Jota to “stand together and be there for one another.”
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.
A minute’s silence was similarly held at women’s Euro 25 matches.
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.
