Diogo Jota Fought to Have a Career and Life Which Ended Too Soon | OneFootball

Diogo Jota’s unique career path in football taught him a life lesson which those mourning his grossly premature death will do well to remember. “The secret is,” he once smiled, “you should never give up.”

No one could be blamed for sinking into a bottomless pit of despair when the fates conspire to rob the world of a son, father, brother, husband and footballer who was just 28. Jota’s brother, André, himself only 25, was also in the fatal car crash.

Much like his younger brother, who was still a regular for Penafiel in Portugal’s second tier last season, Jota enjoyed a modest start to life as a footballer. An infectious dedication which washed over everyone who came into contact with Diogo ultimately ensured that his innate talent was rewarded on the sport’s biggest stage.

Liverpool’s reigning Premier League champion had so much more to give on and off the pitch before this tragic twist, but the fact that he managed to forge anything like the glittering career he did enjoy is a testament to a character many can learn from.

Pay to Play

When Jota’s future Liverpool teammate Harvey Elliott came on for Fulham against a Wolverhampton Wanderers side containing the Portuguese forward in 2019, he became the Premier League’s youngest-ever player at just 16 years and 30 days. At the same age, Jota was paying to play for the U17s team of a tiny side operating in Portugal’s lower leagues.

Overlooked by his boyhood club Porto, Jota made his way at Gondomar, which was a tantalising 10-minute drive from the Estadio do Dragão where his idols played. As is the case with most Portuguese clubs outside the elite, Jota’s parents were obligated to pay a small fee to see their son have his talents honed.

Growing together with the same core of peers for the best part of a decade, Jota remembered that club as “a family”. The diminutive Diogo, then operating on the left side of a midfield three, blossomed into his side’s talisman.

At the end of his final season at Gondomar, Jota rattled in 39 goals across 37 matches. Such was his quality, the youth team coaches battled for his services between themselves, often forcing him to play for two age groups on the same weekend.

This isn’t unheard of in Portugal and Candal applied the same approach during a double header against Gondomar one week. Unfortunately for the prodigious goalkeeper who turned out on Saturday and Sunday, he conceded consecutive hat-tricks scored by Jota.

Paços Ferreira, hardly one of the country’s giants but a top-flight team, came across this all-action teen during his annus mirabilis and quickly whisked him away.

Rejection

Diogo Jota never made a senior appearance for Atlético Madrid. / IMAGO/Alterphotos

“In my youth, growing up, I never played for the big teams,” Jota told Sky Sports in 2022. “I had a few teammates who went to Porto or Benfica. I had trials there but I never stayed. I was one of the better ones but never the best.”

One of Jota’s coaches at Gondomar theorised that this spindly youngster was considered “too small for football” by Portugal’s elite. Yet, just as he joined Paços, the teen hit a fortuitous growth spurt. “My body really developed,” he recalled to FourFourTwo, “and I felt I could do things better on the pitch.”

That stronger frame helped him rack up 32 direct goal contributions across his first 47 senior appearances. Atlético Madrid soon came sniffing around, snapping up the then-19-year-old for €7 million (£6 million, $8.3 million) in 2016. At a time when Diego Simeone’s side were fresh from reaching two Champions League finals in the space of three seasons, this largely low-profile kid from Porto was discarded before La Liga even began.

Yet, in Jota’s typically unflappable fashion, he always insisted that he never regretted making the move to Spain, instead taking comfort from the lessons learned during that preseason with some of Europe’s best players. This mental fortitude would become a signature for the steely striker.

Monster Mentality

Diogo Jota (left) scored the lone goal in the second Merseyside derby of the season. / IMAGO/Propaganda Photo

Jürgen Klopp’s former Liverpool assistant Pep Lijnders famously hailed Jota as a “pressing monster” upon his arrival on Merseyside. Yet, the punchy Portuguese best exemplifies a different kind of beast which came to define the German’s legendary tenure at Anfield, he was the ultimate “mentality monster”.

“Every experience you have, every setback, it always makes you stronger and that was the case with me,” Jota sagely reflected in an interview with The Athletic shortly after arriving at Liverpool. “Of course, everything could be good now but it wasn’t before. You always have to keep striving for what you want to achieve.”

Back at Paços, Jota grew up physically and emotionally. Originally installed in the club’s “academy”, which was cobbled together in a house owner by club president Carlos Barbosa, Jota chose to stay in the digs even after earning promotion to the first-team squad. Dishing out advice and a chore rota, he played the dual role of matron and mentor to the younger players.

Jota almost never even made it into the shabby accommodation after a heart issue was detected during his medical for Paços. Phlegmatic as ever, Jota calmly waited for further tests weeks later to prove his good health. As the club’s youth football co-ordinator Gilberto Andrade gushed to The Telegraph: “His mental strength is out of this world.”

Fast Starts

“When you reach a new club, having an open mind is key to be able to adapt as quickly as possible,” Jota would later muse. That ability to assimilate to new surroundings was repeatedly borne out.

Atlético twice sent Jota out on loan without handing him a single senior minute. He scored a hat-trick on his debut for Porto in 2016 before becoming the first player in Wolverhampton Wanderers history to score in his first four home top-flight matches.

Liverpool poached Jota from Wolves in 2020 after he proved that his opening burst was no fluke. Klopp handed him the seemingly impossible job of “challenging the front three” of Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mané. “I think that is what I did pretty much from the beginning,” Jota, who scored eight minutes into his first league outing for the Reds, shrugged.

Before that debut goal, Jota had already won the hearts of Liverpool fans. On the same day as his unveiling, he told Merseyside’s supporters: “They can count on me because now I am one of them and I will give my best.” As Liverpool fans have been at pains to point out, Jota will forever be one of them.