The Portuguese footballer Diogo Jota, who has died aged 28 in a car accident in Spain, won the Premier League title, the FA Cup and the League Cup with Liverpool, with whom he played from 2020 until his death. A two-time winner of the Nations League with Portugal, he also claimed a Championship title with Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2018, having arrived in England the previous year.
Playing up front and on the left wing, Jota was a versatile, exciting player whose pace, dribbling skills, intelligent movement and composure in front of goal allowed him to score more than 100 times in 300 appearances for his various teams, which also included Porto.
A surprisingly good header of the ball, despite his 5ft 9in stature, he never took his abilities for granted, and was respected throughout his career as a hard-working individual who was more than willing to do the pressing work up front that is so much part of the modern game.
His Premier League title with Liverpool came in April 2025, and he won the second of his Nations League winners’ medals with Portugal in June. As popular on the terraces as he was in the dressing room, he might have expected to take part in many more successes at Liverpool and with his country.
Born in the Massarelos area of Porto, he was the son of Joaquim Silva, a crane operator, and Isabel, a car factory worker. “Jota” is the letter J, for José. Diogo took it up to differentiate himself from similarly named players.
He started at the age of nine with his local Gondomar sports club before signing for another, bigger, Porto-based team, Paços de Ferreira, in 2013 and making his senior debut as an 18-year-old the following year. He played more than 40 games for Paços de Ferreira in the Portuguese first division before being picked up by the Spanish La Liga team Atlético Madrid in 2016.
Although he had two seasons on Atlético’s books, Jota failed to make the first team there, and instead spent much of 2016-17 back in Portugal on loan with Porto, scoring eight times in the Primeira Liga and gaining Champions League experience there, including with a goal against Leicester City.
Still not finding favour at Atlético, he spent the following 2017-18 season on another loan, this time in the English Championship with Wolves under the direction of their Portuguese manager Nuno Espírito Santo. His 17 goals proved instrumental in Wolves’ title win ahead of Cardiff City and he was subsequently signed on a full-time basis for €14m (£12m), becoming a key element of the side’s transition into the Premier League, where they finished seventh in their first two seasons back at the top level.
Liverpool came along in September 2020, paying £41m to secure Jota from Wolves. The club had only recently won the Premier League and Champions League titles, but their manager, Jürgen Klopp, saw Jota as a player who could further strengthen an already impressive squad.
He scored on his Premier League debut for Liverpool, against Arsenal, and shortly afterwards had the honour of bagging Liverpool’s 10,000th goal, against the Danish team Midtjylland in the Champions League, one of seven he scored in his first 10 Liverpool appearances.
A knee injury ruled him out for three months in the middle of that season, in which Liverpool finished third, but in 2021-22 he kicked on impressively, scoring 21 goals in all competitions. He slotted home one of Liverpool’s successful spot-kicks as they beat Chelsea 11-10 on penalties in an extraordinary denouement to that season’s League Cup final, and then came on as a 33rd minute substitute for Mohammed Salah in the FA Cup final, converting another from the spot as Liverpool again won on penalties against Chelsea after an extra-time 0-0 draw. In addition he appeared off the bench in the 65th minute of the Champions League final that season, which Liverpool lost 1-0 to Real Madrid.
After signing a new contract at the beginning of the next season, Jota scored 15 times in the 2023-24 campaign despite being hampered by various injuries, before adding a Premier League medal to his other two Liverpool honours in Arne Slot’s first season as head coach in 2024-25, with nine goals from 26 appearances.
The first of his 49 international matches came in 2019 with a debut against Lithuania in a European Championship qualifier, and he was a member of the Portugal squad that won the Nations League that year.
At the 2020 Euros he played in all of Portugal’s matches until they exited after a round-of-16 loss to Belgium, but missed the 2022 World Cup due to injury. He was back in the Euros in 2024 with three appearances as Portugal progressed to the quarter-finals, in which they lost to France, and his medal as a winner in the 2025 Nations League came from another penalty shootout victory, this time against Spain in the final. In all he scored 14 goals for his country.
Outside football Jota was a keen and accomplished gamer.
He is survived by his wife, Rute Cardoso, whom he married two weeks ago, and their three children, Dinis, Duarte and Laura. His younger brother, André, also a professional footballer, died with him.
• Diogo Jota (Diogo José Teixeira da Silva), footballer, born 4 December 1996; died 3 July 2025
