This week marked the one-year anniversary of Diogo Jota's wedding to Rute Cardoso
Diogo Jota and wife Rute Cardoso
Rute Cardoso marked the one-year anniversary of her wedding to Diogo Jota(Image: Instagram/rutecfcardoso14)
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Diogo Jota's wife Rute Cardoso posted the Liverpool icon's wedding speech to mark their one-year anniversary. Jota - who tragically died in a car crash alongside his brother Andre Silva last July - married his teenage sweetheart on June 22, 2025.
The couple had been together for over a decade and shared three children at the time of their nuptials. The pair enjoyed the joyous occasion in front of their friends and family, but it was less than two weeks later that the Portuguese star lost his life on July 3 in Zamora, Spain.
Exactly a year since their wedding, Rute took to Instagram on Monday to post a video of Jota's heartfelt speech to her. The Reds legend said in the footage: "Where the future takes us, maybe there's someone here who knows better than I do.
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"But the truth is, I don't know and it doesn't really matter to me as long as I'm with you. I love you forever, my ‘Branquinha’." The memory of Jota has remained strong as it approaches one year since his tragic death, with his Portugal team-mates keeping him close to their hearts at the World Cup 2026.
Roberto Martinez's side are wearing a commemorative wristband during the tournament that features every name in the 26-man squad, as well as Jota's. The wristbands were presented to the Portugal squad by the nation's Prime Minister, Luis Montenegro.
Speaking before their 1-1 opener against DR Congo, Paris Saint-Germain and Portugal midfielder Vitinha said: "Basically, the story of the wristband is, when we went to meet with the Prime Minister, he offered us this wristband.
"They made sure that it was a wristband that we could wear on the pitch. It has all the specifics for us to be able to enter the pitch with it, with the name of all the players plus the special name of Diogo Jota.
"He let us choose if we wanted to use it or not, how (we use it), during the day or during the match. We received it with a lot of affection and we chose to use it."