2025: Deaths of Jota, Pinto da Costa and Jorge Costa rocked Porto | OneFootball

Almost a month after helping the national team win the Nations League against the European champion Spain – adding this triumph to the English championship title won by Liverpool – forward Diogo Jota passed away in July in a car accident in Spain, which also claimed the life of his brother André Silva, a player for Penafiel in the II League.

Jota, 28, was preparing for his sixth season with the 'reds', with whom he won four trophies, but did not survive – just like André, 25 – and left behind his widow Rute Cardoso, whom he married eleven days earlier, after the birth of their three children.

The death of the two brothers received significant media attention and stirred emotions among Portuguese and international personalities from football, politics, and music, who attended the funeral ceremonies in Gondomar; tributes continued in the following months, especially near Liverpool's stadium, where a memorial was erected.

Liverpool retired the number '20' jersey from all its teams, as one of the several tributes to Diogo Jota, who wore that number at the club since his arrival at Anfield in 2020, and participated in winning the 20th English championship title last season.

Winner of two Nations Leagues with Portugal, with a total of 14 goals in 49 matches, the forward also played as a senior for the English Wolverhampton and for Paços de Ferreira and FC Porto, which this year bid farewell to two of its greatest figures.

Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa died in February at the age of 87, a victim of cancer, about ten months after losing the club elections to former coach André Villas-Boas, who called him the “president of presidents”, after establishing himself as the most titled and oldest football manager in the world from 1982 to 2024, with 69 senior-level trophies, including seven international ones – in total, he celebrated 2,591 trophies in 21 sports.

Out of respect for a request made in life by his predecessor – whose death did not provoke institutional reactions from Lisbon rivals Benfica and Sporting – Villas-Boas was absent from the funeral, which gathered hundreds of figures from sports and other sectors and remembered an influential personality in the affirmation of the city of Porto and the Northern region.

FC Porto fans created a memorial around the Estádio do Dragão, just as happened in August when former central defender and captain Jorge Costa died at the age of 53, after feeling unwell at the club's training center in Olival, Vila Nova de Gaia.

With 50 matches and two goals for the national team, world champion under-20 in 1991, Jorge Costa led the professional football of the 'dragons', winning 21 trophies between 1992 and 2005, highlighting eight editions of the I League, a Champions League, and a UEFA Cup.

Portuguese football also lost Joaquim Oliveira, 78, chairman of the board of Olivedesportos and the SportTV channel, a central figure in the promotion of television rights, advertising, and sports marketing.

A year younger was Aurélio Pereira, responsible for the scouting department of Sporting, who discovered players like Paulo Futre, Luís Figo, and Cristiano Ronaldo.

In 2025, the country also bid farewell to Artur Santos (94 years), Morato (88), Cruz (85), José Carlos (83), Osvaldinho (79), and Baltazar (77), all former 'AA' internationals.

Manuel Sérgio died at the age of 91, after a career as a university professor, deputy, philosopher, and author of works on sports and human motor skills, while in roller hockey, Júlio Rendeiro, who represented Sporting and led the Portuguese national team, passed away at 83.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.