Hundreds of inhabitants of Gondomar in Noord -Portugal served along the bodies of the former Liverpool -footballer Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva in a chapel in their hometown on Friday, after their death in a car accident in Spain.
In an earlier private wake, Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, FC Porto-President Andre Villas-Boas, Portuguese football federation president Pedro Proenca and the old agent of Jorge Mendes of Jota joined the brothers's family, including Jota's wife Roege Cardoso only a few weeks earlier.
“It is a moment of great pain for the family, which remain anchored for this tragic accident,” said Proenca when he left the wake. “Diogo was an icon for the talent that represents Portuguese football and because of his ability to generate unity around a person.”
The brothers were supposed to drive to a ferry in Spain to travel to the VK when their Lamborghini turned off the road and broke out in flames after midnight. The police said they suspected there was a bond burst.
Silva was also a football player, with penaphile in the Portuguese Second Division.
Their funeral is expected to take place on Saturday in a nearby church at 10 am local time, said the mayor of Gondomar.
The death of Forward Jota at the age of 28 has shocked the world of football, with a tribute that comes in from former teammates, clubs, national leaders and fans.
“Diogo was a silent hero for everything he represented on and next to the field,” said Villas-Boas when he left the Wake.
“These are tragic days, days before reflection, and may the memory of these two athletes, these two big men, live,” added the former Chelsea manager.
Outside Liverpool's Anfield stage fans, fans of flowers, scarves and handwritten notes left behind, many of children.
“I never thought there would be anything that would scare me to go back to Liverpool after the (summer) break,” said Liverpool Teammate Mohamed Salah on Instagram.
“Teammates come and go, but not so. It will be extremely difficult to accept that Diogo will not be there when we go back,” he added.
Mourning for his friend
Jota's manager in Liverpool, Arne Slot, said on Thursday in a statement that his thoughts were with his family.
“My message to them is very clear – you will never walk alone,” Slot said, using the words of the team of the team.
“For us as a club, the feeling of shock is absolutely. Diogo was not only our player, he was a loved one for all of us. He was a teammate, a colleague, a labor measure and in all those roles he was very special,” the Dutchman added.
In Gondomar, a city of around 160,000 people in the Porto -bigstal area that is known for traditional gold and filigree jewelry, residents had trouble getting to terms with the sudden death of a local hero.
On the Diogo Jota Academy in Gondomar – whose motto is “It is not important where we come from, but where we are going” – people have placed candles and flowers, as well as scarves and shirts from the clubs for which he played and from the Portuguese national team in Tribute to the Player.
JOTA opened the Academy in 2022 for children from six to nine in the Gondomar Football Club where he himself played as a child for 10 years.
It was in Gondomar's high school that he met his wife. They started dating at the age of 15 in the same class and she became a pillar in his life.
When they were 19, they moved to Madrid together, when Jota was transferred from the Little Portuguese club Pacos de Ferreira to Atletico Madrid.
“In addition to his girlfriend and best friend, I am his number one fan,” Cardoso told the newspaper 'A Bola' at the time.
Jota went back to Liverpool by car after he was told that he had to avoid the plane for up to six weeks after pulmonary operation to tackle a broken rib, his physiotherapist Miguel Goncalves De Beridcaster now told the Beridcaster late on Thursday.
Goncalves said that Jota recovered well from the pneumothorax operation and that he was planning to take a ferry to the UK from Spain.