Diogo Jota’s death has made me question fame, football and mortality ...Middle East

You just want the news not to be true. You stare at a small screen, feel a tight knot in your stomach and pray that someone has made a mistake, that wires have been crossed somewhere down the line. Deep down you know, but you hope anyway. It is a hardwired reaction to the worst: disbelief, denial. Then the black-and-white photos and the confirmations come.

The death of Diogo Jota is not primarily a football tragedy. He was a husband, married just two weeks ago with joyous images posted on social media that now ache with sadness. He was a father to three children and a son to parents and all must grow old and older with this devastation as a permanent mark.

He was an older brother to Andre, with whom he passed away in the car accident in Zamora. Andre, aged 26, was a professional footballer too with second-tier club Penafiel. If all of football is grieving, Liverpool and Penafiel are hurting most because their empty space is literal as well as emotional.

As such, this has to be a football tragedy too. This, after all, is how we came to know Jota’s name and his brilliance. He came to England as a prodigious, slightly scrawny young man, not to a superclub but to the Championship and to Wolves, a Portuguese enclave. He was able to develop and, quite frankly, often take the p*ss with how good he was for that level. Promotion to the Premier League came after just one season with him as Wolves’ top scorer.

Jota’s own personal promotion was inevitable. At Liverpool, he found a manager in Jurgen Klopp who delighted in the speed, skill and positional flexibility. But most of all, Klopp admired Jota for his resilience in overcoming regular injuries and continuing to make the difference. After a 2-0 win over Arsenal in January 2022 – Jota scoring both goals – Klopp said it simply: “Mentality mixed with quality is the reason we signed him.”

There is sadness when we lose anyone who entertained and enthralled us; we remember them with silence or applause before our matches. But to lose a footballer in the prime of their life and their career hurts us most because we tend to see sporting heroes as immortal on some level, somehow separated from normal life.

square FOOTBALL

Liverpool footballer Diogo Jota dies in car crash aged 28

Thus their deaths are the most acute reminder of life’s preciousness and fragility. Elite sport – its obsessions, its idolatry, its constant churn and noise – tricks us into forgetting how everything can be snatched away in an instant. It is escapism until the moment that it isn’t; then reality hits twice as hard.

I find myself questioning my own mentality around footballers, particularly as I get older and the new crop of elite players stay the same age. Do we treat these players as human beings enough? Why does it take moments such as these, when our stomachs have been punched, to ponder all this?

We talk a lot about the football family. It can often feel like an intangible concept, but it does matter. Every teammate, every member of staff, every supporter of every club Jota played for, will be deeply affected. The mark of a person is how many other people they impact. It’s just a damn shame that we rarely get to appreciate it before it’s too late. The one hope in all this is that his family understands in time just how loved he was.

The tragic irony: Jota had enjoyed the best days of his life so soon before his passing. He had won the Premier League with Liverpool and the Nations League with Portugal. He had been with Rute for a decade before their wedding. Underneath a post by his new wife, Jota posted five words: “I am the lucky one”.

That is why this all feels so sickening and impossible to process. How can sport matter in comparison to personal tragedy? How can it not matter when the personal tragedy of someone we don’t know makes people feel like this?

After their wedding ceremony, Diogo Jota and Rute Cardoso posted a joint message with a simple caption: “June 22, 2025. Yes to forever.”

Reading those words now makes me feel quite sick and I suspect the same is true for us all. Forget the noise of football for a while. Go and hug someone close to you. Avoid needing terrible, tragic news to put life into perspective. Rest in peace, Diogo Jota and Andre Silva.

Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Diogo Jota’s death has made me question fame, football and mortality )

Also on site :

• Rough start dooms SB Foresters
• Naveen Expresses Happiness as Odisha Ranked 5th Nationally in PGI-2.0 School Grading System
• Palestine Action activists charged over UK base break-in