Just a quick one, as I didn't know much about Diogo Jota as a person or as a player, but like everyone I was blindsided by the news this week that he'd died in a car crash in Spain. Coming so soon after Liverpool's Premier League victory, and after Jota's wedding to his long-term partner, it all feels like a bad dream.
Given that I'm not a Liverpool fan, and my knowledge of the team is based mostly on its storied history and my own travails choosing Liverpool players for Fantasy Premier League, I don't have much of a sense of him. He was certainly important, though, scoring a number of important goals over his years there. He may not have been one of the most high-profile names in a team that featured Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane, but he was surely more than a squad player. His Wikipedia page says that he scored 47 goals in 123 appearance for the club, which is an impressive feat.
In his time at Liverpool the club won the Premier League (2024-25), the FA Cup (2021-22) and the League Cup twice (2021-22, 2023-24), while also coming in as runners-up in the League Cup in 2024-25 and the Champions League in 2021-22. At international level, he was part of the Portugal teams that won the Nations League in 2018-19 and 2024-25.
These stats are obviously just numbers and dates, and sadly, his part in the history of Liverpool, Wolverhampton Wanderers and the Portugal men's team is over, carrying with it the question of where his career might have gone. If he hadn't died, one can question if he'd ever have won another trophy (football is after all a cruel old game), but at least he'd be here to savor the ones he did win, as well as getting to see his kids grow up. His death, and the hole it leaves behind in the lives of his loved ones, is a reminder that, in Arrigo Sacchi's words, football is the most important of the least important things in life.
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