Deaths have been marked across world

Portugal and the world said their final goodbyes in Gondomar today to footballing brothers Diogo Jota and André Silva.

Dozens of footballing personalities flew in to pay their respects, along with players and staff from Liverpool Football Club where Jota was an indispensable member of the squad.

National and international media have given their own perspectives of this exceptionally sad day, with the British press highlighting how Liverpool bosses have pledged to continue paying Jota’s salary for the next two years, in order to help his devastated family.

Portugal’s football coach, Spaniard Roberto Martinez, was one of the many personalities attending today’s service. Visibly emotional, he told reporters: “We are Portugal, and it was essential for us that [with] André Silva and Diogo Jota, we are together and we will always be together and their spirit will be with us forever. Thank you very much for your messages, for your support and everything that we have received [from] all over the world. It means a lot and today we are all one football family.”

As Lusa reports, there was a large contingent of Portuguese international players, including Rúben Neves and João Cancelo, who played in the Club World Cup for Al Hilal in the United States yesterday but managed to travel to Portugal shortly afterwards.

Portuguese players Bernardo Silva, Bruno Fernandes, João Félix, José Fonte, Danilo Pereira, José Sá, André Horta and Ricardo Horta were also present at the ceremony presided over by Porto bishop D. Manuel Linda .

The Penafiel squad, for which André Silva played, also attended in large numbers, and were responsible for transporting the coffin of their former teammate to the Igreja Matriz where the funeral took place.

The funeral came after a public wake yesterday at the Capela da Ressurreição in Gondomar, attended by Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the prime minister, Luís Montenegro.

Diogo Jota, 28, and his brother André Silva, 25, died in the early hours of Thursday morning after the Lambourghini Jota was driving burst a tyre on the A52, in Cernadilla, Zamora, Spain.

Jota had represented Liverpool for five seasons in which the club won an English League, an FA Cup and two League Cups, also becoming champion of the Championship, the English second tier, with Wolverhampton.

After training at Gondomar and Paços de Ferreira, Jota played for FC Porto for a season, on loan from Atlético de Madrid, and was then loaned by the Spanish club to Wolverhampton, where he spent three seasons.

Playing for the Portuguese national team, Diogo Jota won 49 caps and scored 14 goals, recalls Lusa.