On trains into Liverpool’s Lime Street railway station this morning, phones were pinging with news alerts about the death of much-loved striker Diogo Jota.
Nobody wanted to believe it. How could it be that someone in their prime, so universally popular, had so suddenly had their life extinguished?
You don’t have to know someone personally to be left heartbroken by their passing but I got to know him in my role as the Mail’s North West football reporter and he stood out for his unfailing courtesy and politeness.
Whenever I quizzed him about his performances in press conferences or in the more informal ‘mixed zone’, where players and journalists interacted after matches, there was never any edge to him. He was what we call in these parts ‘a really good lad’.
It’s a measure of the affection in which he was held by Liverpool fans that they composed a song for him.
‘Oh, he wears our number 20! He will take us to victory! And when he’s runnin’ down the left wing, he’ll cut inside and score for LFC! He’s the lad from Portugal, better than Figo, don’t you know! Oh, his name is Diogo!’
Diogo Jota had married his childhood sweetheart Rute Cardoso, the mother of his three children, less than a fortnight before his death. Here they are pictured on their wedding day
The couple with their three children at Anfield in May after Liverpool won the Premier League
Only the special ones, those who are embraced from the first moment, get songs created with such joy and imagination. And, boy, was Diogo Jota special. Quicksilver with magic feet, he was clever and skilful and there were grounds to say he was Liverpool’s most natural finisher since Robbie Fowler.
The song for him made you smile and it was only right because he made you smile. When you dealt with him, away from the cameras, he left an impression with his professionalism and his courtesy. You watched him on the pitch and you knew good times would never be too far away.
How dreadful, then, that the thought of his warm smile brings only tears on this darkest day. The unimaginable grief that has overwhelmed a family in Portugal, after two brothers perished in a car crash on the Spanish border, has devastated a city and left football fans in shock.
Cristiano Ronaldo, his Portugal captain, explained that the incident ‘doesn’t make sense’ and he is absolutely right. How is it even possible that we can be sat here writing about someone in the past tense when everything was still in front of them?
Jota had just married his long-term girlfriend, Rute Cardoso, the pair having been blessed with three beautiful young children. Just 39 days ago, they had been on the pitch at Anfield, listening to The Kop sing his name. Overcome with happiness, as he clutched a Premier League winners’ medal, he gleefully joined in.
On an afternoon when there were so many sights unfolding in front of you, through the tickertape and the red pyrotechnics, there was something about Jota shaking his arms to the rhythm of the song, with a big broad grin, that stayed in the mind.
He wasn’t the biggest star in the group, not by a long way. That wasn’t his character. But he was one of those players that Liverpool fans adore, the kind who you know is always giving his maximum and always likely to come up with something when the team needed it.
Liverpool had signed him in September 2020, three months after their previous Premier League title. It was a move by stealth, announced on a Friday afternoon within 24 hours of interest becoming known, and the delight of securing his signature from Wolves was enormous.
He was seen celebrating wildly with Cristiano Ronaldo on June 8 – less than a month ago – after Portugal won the Nations League
Pep Lijnders, Liverpool’s then assistant head coach, charted Jota’s progress after a spell on loan at Porto from Atletico Madrid in 2016-17. The Dutchman called him ‘a pressing machine’ and Jurgen Klopp was a fully paid-up member of his fan club too, watching Wolves after they signed Jota whenever he got the chance.
He was a popular figure in the Black Country; Jota was passionate about the computer game Football Manager and once proudly revealed he had taken non-league Telford to the summit of European football, having spent plenty of time in front of a screen during lockdown.
His commitment to his profession, however, was highlighted by the fact that Jota was one of the first to get back to training when restrictions were lifted – and that level of dedication was an aspect that immediately struck a chord with his new teammates five years ago.
Liverpool’s dressing room back then was notoriously difficult to impress but, straight away, he was buzzing about, trying to show that he could live up to the billing Klopp had given him of being on a par with his vaunted trident of Mo Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino.
And what a start he made: seven goals in his first 10 games, a figure surpassed only by Fowler (1993), Tony Hateley (1967) and Johnny Wheeler (1956), including a hat-trick in a Champions League skewering of Atalanta.
‘Their quality makes it easier for me to do my job,’ said Jota that night in Bergamo, unintentionally letting the world know the type of character he was. ‘They are outstanding players. I’m playing for the best team in my career so far.’
There was barely a moment in the five years that followed when he didn’t give reason for happiness. Yes, he was betrayed by fitness issues on occasions but at his best, he was a huge asset: there was devilment and tenacity mixed with undoubted skill and flair.
One conversation with Klopp in February 2022 about him is still easily recalled, not for what the German said but more how he reacted when the observation was made. I’d told him Jota, whose form had been outstanding, had scored Liverpool’s opening goal 10 times that season.
‘Ah,’ Klopp said in that way of his, resting his chin on his hand and smiling. ‘A good boy.’
Everyone felt the same, Arne Slot especially. He will forever be indebted to the contributions which lit up his debut campaign – the first goal of the Liverpool manager’s reign, at Ipswich, a vital equaliser against Fulham on December 14, another a month later at the City Ground against Nottingham Forest.
Then there was his last goal of the season, on April 2. Nothing was guaranteed the night Everton arrived at Anfield and this Merseyside Derby was fractious, bitty and on a knife edge until the 57th minute when Jota shuffled and shimmied and slipped in a finish that put the title within reach.
How Anfield sang his name that night. How he adored scoring that goal, punching his arms in the air as he walked off to a standing ovation 18 minutes later. They will never forget that goal. And they will never forget him, the number 20 who helped deliver title number 20. The love for Jota is eternal.
