Diogo Jota - the 'perfect signing' for Liverpool and figurehead for a gifted Portuguese generation

Popular forward was star for club and country before his death in a car accident age 28

At the end of the last professional assignment of a life cut tragically short, Diogo Jota took it upon himself to quietly organise the protocols.

He and his Portugal teammates had just won the Uefa Nations League in Munich, a long evening’s work, a final against Spain settled on penalties, and the time had arrived for the trophy formalities.

Jota knew the drill better than many, because his talents had led him to several such ceremonies. To rewatch the footage of those moments is to see how he gently corrals his colleagues into an orderly line, so that the match officials can make a dignified walk to the podium for their medals.

Tributes pour in for Diogo Jota, Liverpool star and recently married father

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He’s there with a big smile, ruffling the head of his young compatriot Nuno Mendes, who had just been handed the award for Player of the Tournament.

Jota is there just behind the captain Cristiano Ronaldo and Bruno Fernandes at the trophy lift, the squad’s next best source of goals behind those two and an admired and popular figurehead for a gifted generation of Portuguese footballers.

Tributes, following the news of his and his brother Andre’s deaths in a car accident, endorsed that status and the affection he was held in.

Fernando Santos, the manager who first called up Jota for the senior national team, spoke of a “great player and super person” and remembered not only his contributions to a stellar Portugal forward line but his big-hearted commitment.

“He had an enormous passion for the national team,” said Santos, recalling that, when injury kept Jota from taking part in the 2022 World Cup finals, “he made a point of coming out there to see us, to visit us at the training ground and to be at our matches. That was all his own initiative.”

Jota, added Santos, would have won more than his 49 caps but for injury and perhaps but for the exceptionally long span of Ronaldo’s career. “He coincided with the best player in the world,” said Santos, “but he still found a key role, and that was greatly to his credit.”

That drive to define a role, to complement greatness, was echoed at Liverpool, the club Jota joined five summers ago, aged 23, a versatile, hard-working and inventive striker capable of operating across attacking positions who had shown at Wolverhampton Wanderers he could thrive in the Premier League.

Liverpool fans gather outside Anfield, home of Liverpool FC, to pay tribute to striker Diogo Jota, who died in a car crash on Thursday in north-west Spain with his younger brother. PA

A birds-eye view of mourners as they gather outside Anfield. PA

People embrace one another as they pay tribute to Liverpool's Portuguese player Diogo Jota, who died in a car crash on Thursday. Reuters

A football fan plays on his guitar to the tune of 'You'll Never Walk Alone' as fans gather in memory of Liverpool player Diogo Jota at Anfield. AP

Flowers and tributes to Liverpool's Diogo Jota are left under a statue of former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly outside Anfield. Reuters

Tributes at Anfield Stadium, home of Liverpool, in memory of Diogo Jota. PA

A woman walks past a banner in tribute to Liverpool's Portuguese player Diogo Jota. Reuters

A scarf is tied to the Shankly Gates outside Anfield. Reuters

But his task at Liverpool initially looked daunting. The trio of Mohammed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane had established an era-defining complicity over several years in Liverpool’s front line. Jota’s achievement would be to enhance that strike-force and to come to be regarded as a finisher as good as any of them.

He won every major domestic prize with Liverpool, adding last season’s Premier League title to his FA Cup and League Cups.

Jurgen Klopp, his Liverpool manager for four of his five seasons at Anfield, once described Jota as “the perfect signing for us: technical skills, physical skills – and he’s very smart, learning all the tactical stuff pretty quickly.

On top of that – the speed and the desire to finish. The statistics agree: In 182 Liverpool matches, he scored 65 goals and directly set up another 26, averaging a goal-contribution every other game, or, given he was frequently used off the substitutes bench, a goal-contribution every 112 minutes.

His journey to the elite had not been conventional. Neither Porto, nor Benfica nor Sporting, Portugal’s biggest clubs and the sites of the country's most productive academies, took on the teenaged Jota as a prospect.

He debuted as a professional at unsung Pacos de Ferreira. He joined Atletico Madrid from there but never played for them, moving immediately to Porto on loan.

A single season at Porto would be enough to persuade Wolves, then recruiting a number of Portuguese players, that Jota could be a key part of their bid for promotion to the English Premier League.

He moved to the English midlands in 2017. By the following May, he was Wolves’ top scorer on their way to winning the Championship.

Two impressive top division seasons with Wolves provided Liverpool with the evidence they needed that here was a player with the portfolio of skills to succeed in the company of Salah, Mane and Firmino.

Wolves received a fee of around £45m, yet only this week their chairman Jeff Shi was reflecting that of the many transfers he has overseen, the departure of Jota ranks among his chief regrets.

As his former Wolves teammate, Raul Jimenez, among the many paying tribute, remembered he was “an excellent colleague and friend – and above all a great father.”

Jota, who married his long-time partner Rute Cardoso, last month, leaves two sons and a daughter.