Diogo Jota scores a hat-trick: The night we knew he was special | OneFootball

Diogo Jota properly announced himself to Liverpool fans one night in Italy. Here's the hat-trick that showed he was special.

It's November 2020 and Liverpool have had a strange season. They're the reigning Premier League champions and favourites to win it all again.

Some new faces have helped boost the team further, with Thiago Alcantara and Diogo Jota joining from Bayern Munich and Wolves, respectively. The Spaniard arrived with incredible fanfare and expectation - with Jota it was much less so, but he brought depth to the attack that Liverpool hadn't had in a long, long time.

Things got turned around on October 17th, however. Virgil van Dijk suffered a serious knee injury, ruling him out for the entire season and seemingly ending Liverpool's chances of winning major trophies.

Fortunately, players stepped up. One of them was Jota, who quickly showed why Liverpool paid £41m to sign him that summer: he could score goals out of nothing.

In his first start since Van Dijk's injury, Jota scored in a 2-1 win against Sheffield United. He followd that with a goal in a 2-0 win over FC Midtjylland just three days later. Four days after that? A goal as Liverpool narrowly beat West Ham United 2-1.

The Portuguese forward clearly had everything he needed to shine at Anfield, scoring decisive goals when the Reds desperately needed them. But they hadn't seen anything yet.

Diogo Jota arrives

The next game following that West Ham win was a trip to Atalanta in the UEFA Champions League. Jota got the nod to start the fixture and that wasn’t a simple one - all of his four previous goals that season came at Anfield, making this a true test.

Jurgen Klopp backed his new signing, though, and was repaid with one of the truly great European away displays. Not just from Jota, in fact, but from Liverpool as a club.

The opener came from a brilliant through-ball from Trent Alexander-Arnold who allowed Jota to beat the offside trap and get the wrong side of his defender. The forward shrugged off said defender and dinked the goalkeeper with his first touch.

Goal no.2 came from Joe Gomez floating one into the box as Jota made a run behind to find some space. This is the goal that showed Liverpool fans exactly what they’d signed.

He controlled it on his left foot, plucking the ball out of the air and nudging it inside. The defender quickly shifted his weight to react but nowhere near quick enough - Jota’s second touch was to rifle it home with his right foot.

That level of two-footedness made Jota stand out and it’s difficult to think of another forward who offered that. Taking a touch that comfortably on one foot and then having the ability with the other to finish near post? Just unbelievably good.

Liverpool now had a 2-0 lead in Bergamo and it was entirely down to Jota producing elite quality as a goalscorer. The kind that Luis Suarez, Fernando Torres, Michael Owen, Robbie Fowler and all the other sensational goalscoring centre-forwards would be proud of.

Both Mo Salah and Sadio Mane would score incredible goals after Jota’s brace, as was typical. With that it was 4-0 and Liverpool looked completely unstoppable.

It fell to Jota to wrap-up the night - he beats the offside trap once again, Mane finds him with a beautiful pass, and the forward rounds the goalkeeper to finish with ease. 5-0. Magic. Jota was on another level.

Sitting here reminiscing about this fixture really hits home just how good Jota was. Really, the sole reason we’re not labelling him one of the all-time greatest is because his body didn’t quite let him on the pitch enough to show off just how good he was.

But that doesn’t really matter, ultimately. What does matter is that Diogo Jota left an impression on all of our lives and today has made that abundantly clear. It’s probably clearer than it’s ever been just what an impression footballers can leave, to be honest.

Diogo Jota will never be forgotten by any of us. And it’s games like this that hammer that home.

If I’m lucky enough to live to 80, I know I’ll still have a vivid image in my mind of Jota knocking that ball inside with his left and hammering it home with his right. And it’ll make me genuinely happy to remember it and that moment and everything it made me feel at the time.

And every Liverpool fan, and fans of other clubs he played for, will have those moments ingrained in their memory forever. For me it’s that Atalanta game and that second goal. For some it will be the brace against Arsenal or the goal against Everton this season or some other equally justifiable moment.

It’s the most you can possibly ask from someone you never actually met and who didn’t even know you existed. Moments that bring you genuine happiness just to remember, let alone live.