On the 3rd July 2025, it was announced that Liverpool footballer Diogo Jota, along with his brother Andre Silva, sadly died in a road traffic accident in Spain. The Portuguese international moved to Liverpool from Wolverhampton Wanderers in September 2020 and fans, players and staff from both clubs, and indeed the wider football family, paid tribute to the talented attacker who was only 28 years old when he passed away.
We’ll take a look back at Jota’s career and we’ll note some of the tributes that have flooded in from his former colleagues and fans.
Diogo Jota: Consistently Brilliant and Likeable Player
Born in Porto, Portugal, on 4th December 1996, Diogo José Teixeira da Silva (to give his full name) began his footballing career by playing for local side Gondomar, before joining the youth programme at Paços de Ferreira in 2013. He broke into the senior side, who played in the Primeira Liga in Portugal, making his debut in February 2015. He notched his first goals for the club soon after when scoring twice against Académica de Coimbra, helping his side to a 3-2 victory and becoming the youngest Paços de Ferreira player to score a top-tier goal for the club.
After scoring 15 times for Paços in 45 games spread over the 2014/15 and 2015/16 seasons, Jota was bought by Spanish giants Atletico Madrid… and promptly loaned to Porto, for whom he scored nine goals in 37 appearances. He was then loaned to Premier League side Wolverhampton Wanderers and was a key player in their successful promotion push from the Championship to the EPL. After scoring 17 league goals in 44 games, the Wolves board were convinced by his quality and shelled out a fee of around €14 million to sign him from the Spaniards.
Jota Makes His Mark in the Premier League
Some players can do the business in the English second tier, but struggle to reproduce their form once in the top flight. But Diogo Jota’s transition to Premier League action was relatively seamless. He scored his first EPL goal for Wolves against Chelsea in December 2018, and he scored a total of 44 times for the club in 131 games in all competitions. Although he didn’t quite hit the same scoring stats in the top flight as he had in the Championship, he still showed enough to impress Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool and the Reds purchased Jota for around £41 million from Wolves in September 2020.
The standards were high at Liverpool as they had just won their first Premier League title, but Jota found his feet reasonably well in his debut season for the club, scoring 13 goals in 30 games in all competitions. But it was the 2021/22 campaign in which he really shone, scoring 15 in 35 league games. It was also the first (and now sadly only) season in which he scored more than 20 times in all competitions for a club, with his 21 strikes coming from 55 games.
Over the next three seasons, several injuries led to time on the sidelines. When fit, however, Jota tended to make positive contributions to the side and popped up with several crucial goals to help the Reds win their second Premier League crown in 2024/25. He also won the FA Cup and League Cup with the club, and there was every chance he’d help them pick up plenty more silverware. Alas, that is not to be for the man who made 49 appearances for Portugal, scoring 14 goals and helping them win the Nations League twice.
A versatile attacker who was able to play in several positions, including as a striker, a “false 9”, a winger or a centre forward, Jota always gave his managers plenty of options when they wanted to mix things up in attack. Adept at finishing and dribbling, he also had an excellent engine. He was surprisingly good in the air for a shorter player, and his work rate was exceptional too – especially for a forward player. Away from football, he was a keen gamer and even had his own eSports team. He leaves behind his wife, whom he married just 11 days before the accident, and three children.
Tributes to Diogo Jota
When news of Jota’s death broke, the tributes flooded in from fans, pundits and players. Former Liverpool teammate Trent Alexander-Arnold, who recently moved to Real Madrid, said Jota was someone who “lit up a room” and went on to add, “It has been difficult but it’s been very emotional, very heartwarming to see the footballing world uniting and come together to show their love and support to him and his family, and obviously his brother as well.”
Meanwhile, Jurgen Klopp, the man who signed him for Liverpool, said, “Diogo was not only a fantastic player, but also a great friend, a loving and caring husband and father! We will miss you so much!” While current Liverpool boss Arne Slot summed up the mood at his club when he said, “For us as a club, the sense of shock is absolute. Diogo was not just our player. He was a loved one to all of us. He was a teammate, a colleague, a workmate and in all of those roles he was very special.”
He will be missed by many in the game and plenty beyond, as was shown by the flowers and tributes at a special memorial site set up at Anfield which has expanded to the full length of the ground’s main stand. He also got a nod from the world of music as Man City-supporting Oasis put aside the tribal nature of football and beamed Jota’s image onto the big screen as the band played one of their greatest, and in this case, most poignant songs: Live Forever.