The wife and parents of the late Diogo Jota were seen wiping away tears as Wolves paid a touching tribute to their former player with a stunning tifo ahead of their Premier League opener against Manchester City. The remarkable tribute depicted a giant Jota celebrating a goal during his tenure as a Wolves player, a period in which he led the team to the Championship title and consecutive seventh-placed finishes in the Premier League.
Alongside the tifo, a banner was unfurled on the pitch bearing the poignant words: "We'll remember you when you walk in fields of gold." Jota's wife, Rute Cardoso, attended the match alongside Ruben Neves, his former Wolves and Portugal team-mate and close friend. Neves also served as a pallbearer at Jota's funeral following his tragic death last month.
Also present for the match were the parents of Jota and Andre Silva, who tragically died alongside his brother in a car accident in Spain. Like Jota's wife, Isabel and Joaquim Silva were visibly moved to tears.
As the match clock ticked past the 18-minute mark, fans around the stadium rose to their feet and applauded for 60 seconds in honour of Jota, who wore the No. 18 shirt during his time at Molineux.
Jota moved to Liverpool from Wolves in 2020, spending five years at Anfield. Their opening Premier League game against Bournemouth on Friday night also featured numerous tributes to Jota.
Liverpool boss Arne Slot confessed after the match that he desperately wished he could have turned to Jota from the bench as his team hunted a decisive goal.
"Normally at 2-2 everyone knows which player I look to at that moment in time," Slot revealed. "I would have loved to bring in Diogo Jota, but I could not for terrible reasons. But tonight the fans and the players did what he did for us many times in the past."
Match winner Federico Chiesa, who fired Liverpool ahead towards the end of the game, also honoured Jota during his post-match chat.
He said: "[The goal] was a great moment for me, but my thoughts go to Diogo. I think for what we have seen it was his day.
"The feeling that the fans gave me, chanting his song all the way through the match. It was very emotional, very emotional for me. I have to say that after the goal my thoughts went to his family, his brother Andre. That's the only thing I could say.
"At the end of the day we have to focus on the football. We wanted to win today. It was a difficult match, we went 2-0 up and then they came back, but we showed why we are champions.
"Of course Diogo would have helped us a lot but unfortunately he was somewhere else and he helped us in another way."
This story originally appeared on The Mirror.