Diogo Jota of Liverpool (Getty images)
Diogo Jota’s death at the age of 28 is unbearably tragic and has prompted an outpouring of grief in the football world and beyond. The Liverpool forward lost his life in the early hours of this morning when his Lamborghini careered off a road in Spain and caught fire. Jota had married his childhood sweetheart, Rute, a few days earlier in their home city of Porto. His brother, Andre Silva, 26, also died in the crash.
Jota’s last goal for Liverpool came in May against the club’s ancient and bitter local rivals, Everton
We don’t expect our friends to die. We expect young men in the peak of physical health, like Jota, to do so even less. As Jurgen Klopp, Jota’s former manager at Liverpool said: ‘This is a moment where I struggle. There must be a bigger purpose. But I can’t see it’.
Though the cars that footballers drive may be more powerful than the average person’s, that doesn’t mean these tragedies are any different to young boys in their first old banger suffering the same, terrible fate. Yet it seems different, because to football fans, who consume the lives of players from academy to retirement, sometimes all within the same decade or so, these are rarified humans. They are beyond us, yet known to us intimately. We never meet them, but have them tied into our routines as if they were friends.
This is perhaps why, when footballers die in the prime of their lives, it seems particularly hard to comprehend. Jota is not the first footballer to die in a car accident. In 2019, former Arsenal and Real Madrid winger Jose Antonio Reyes lost his life in an accident in Spain. In December last year, West Ham forward Michail Antonio almost died after a crash in Epping Forest.
Liverpool, too, has known a number of its young men pass away before their time. Ian Frodsham, in 1995, succumbed to cancer, having been tipped for the very top of the game. Miki Roque, who came through the club’s youth system, passed away at the age of 23 in 2012, also of cancer. Besian Idrizaj, a teammate of Roque at the academy, died two years earlier whilst with Swansea City.
Those names aren’t necessarily in the same bracket of recognition as Jota’s, a Premier League and FA Cup winner, not to mention a two-time Nations League champion with Portugal. But they, like he, are a reminder that, from the base of academy football to the very pinnacle of the game, these young men we idolise are just as fragile as we are.
Jota’s last goal for Liverpool came in April against the club’s ancient and bitter local rivals, Everton. It was the winning goal, from a pass from Luis Diaz. A symbolic moment, it turned out, in a symbolic season, as the player who wore the No. 20 shirt played his part in the club’s historic 20th league title.
Some weeks later, on the final day of the season, Jota’s family took to the pitch to hear him serenaded by the Anfield crowd. His song, a fan favourite, echoed around the stadium. The last time he kicked a ball on the turf was not competitively, but in his socks, playing passes to his two young sons, who must now grow up without their father.
Footballers, ultimately, are ordinary young men. We often forget that, amid the fame and the success, depression and elation. Jota’s sad passing has elicited very ordinary feelings of grief among many people. What is extraordinary is that these ordinary men can elicit such emotions in so very many people. Rest in peace, Diogo.