Portuguese Football and Liverpool Bid Farewell to Diogo Jota and his Brother André
Gondomar, Portugal – The Portuguese football community and Liverpool came together this Saturday to say a final farewell to Diogo Jota and his brother André in an emotional funeral held in Gondomar, the city where they both grew up. The Matriz Church of Gondomar was the setting for the exequies, where prominent figures from football gathered. Among those in attendance were the Portugal coach, Roberto Martínez, the president of the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF), Pedro Proença, and several former teammates such as Bernardo Silva, João Moutinho, Rúben Dias, João Félix and Rui Patrício. The Liverpool team and coaching staff paid tribute to the brothers, wearing commemorative shirts. Virgil van Dijk wore the shirt with Diogo Jota’s number 20, while Jordan Henderson wore André Silva’s number 30.
Upon completion of the ceremony, the brothers were buried in the church cemetery. Upon leaving the premises, soccer players, coaches, relatives, and friends showed their sorrow. Diogo Jota, 28, and his brother André, 25, died on Thursday in a traffic accident in Spain. The forward, trained in the Portuguese clubs of Gondomar and Paços de Ferreira, was a player for Atlético de Madrid in 2016 and later played on loan at FC Porto until 2018, when he moved to the English league. Since 2020 he was a Liverpool player. The player had married his partner of 13 years, Rute Cardoso, on June 22nd, with whom he had three minor children, one of them an eight-month-old girl. His brother André Felipe Silva was also a footballer and played for Penafiel, a team in the Portuguese second division. The coach Roberto Martínez stated that André Silva and Diogo Jota will always be in everyone’s hearts. “I would like to thank everyone for being here, these have been very, very, very, very sad days, but today was an opportunity to show that André Silva and Diogo Jota are with us, they are going to be with us and we are all a family,” declared Martínez, who flew to Portugal from the USA.“Dear Dinis, Mafalda and Duarte, children who are not here, at this moment you are suffering immensely or perhaps not, because you do not understand,” said the bishop.
Bishop of Porto, Manuel Linda
