Diogo Jota of Liverpool celebrates with the Premier League trophy, as Liverpool are crowned the Champions of the Premier League for the 2024/25 Season, following the Premier League match between Liverpool FC and Crystal Palace FC at Anfield on May 25, 2025 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
Diogo Jota celebrates with the Premier League trophy as Liverpool are crowned champions at Anfield on May 25, 2025
Liverpool players, they come and they go, but not like this. Never should it be in such heartbreakingly traumatic circumstances as this.
This should have been the summer of Diogo Jota's life; a period that would have one day had him regaling his grandchildren with.
Premier League champion with Liverpool and a Nations League winner at Portugal, all before marrying his long-term partner, Rute, in a ceremony attended by their three children. They were halcyon days for the much-loved Jota, even if they were all too fleeting.
His wedding day, an occasion where he was "bursting with love" according to his Reds team-mate , was less than a fortnight ago.
That everyone at Liverpool is now facing up to both trying to process his death in the immediate aftermath and the long-term effects of coping with such brutal loss seems cruel.
For Rute, their children and Jota's parents, who are also dealing with the death of younger sibling Andre, it is a fate that is incomprehensible.
Even for a football club that is used to having the firm grip of grief to its throat, this one will feel different. How could it not?
The outpouring of emotion from the great and the good of Liverpool FC and the wider footballing fraternity offer a peek behind the curtain as to how loved the 28-year-old was.
Those who dealt with him closer and more frequently speak of an intelligent, likable colleague who was always happy to give his time for whatever the cause; a player who treated princes and paupers all the same at .
was more than happy to give back to supporters, recording a video of encouragement for the father of one of the victims of the Southport attack last year, as he prepared to run the London Marathon in his daughter's name. For Sergio Aguiar, it was a gesture that meant the world.
Jota also delighted a younger profile of Reds fan when he sent in a message for those attending the BOSS Kids event on the morning of the Premier League trophy presentation in May.
For all the fame and stardom that comes when you are an international footballer at , Jota always wore the demeanour of someone who was fully aware of how utterly privileged he was.
"The very essence of a Liverpool player," was how perfectly summed him up in one of the many touching and genuine tributes that flowed forth on Thursday.
And if the prevailing theme emerging from the profound sadness of Jota's team-mates is that he was the most quintessentially British person never to hail from these shores - a characterisation shaped by the - then it would be just as accurate to describe the Portuguese-born striker as a Scouser in all but his passport.
From his work ethic and absence of ego through to his understated nature and willingness to fight the corner; Jota embodied everything this region prides itself on. For the people of Merseyside, they can bestow no greater honour.
As Gondomar now gets set to host Jota and his brother Andre's funeral on Saturday morning, the sense of deep sadness for a national hero in Portugal is mirrored on Merseyside.
They are mourning on the streets of Porto right now but that pain is felt just as acutely in L4, where hundreds of well-wishers have turned out to pay their own respects at Anfield since the dreadful news was made public.
A book of condolences will remain open for the public across the weekend as Liverpool's leaders mull over their next move to help process such an enormous and shocking loss.
Liverpool players, they come and they go. But for Diogo Jota, a different fate now awaits. In time, he will be immortalised as a champion in eternity.