No matter the distance, Jota was always within reach.
“He never changed his phone number after leaving Pacos. He didn’t need to. He always answered when people called,” said former club president Paulo Meneses.
“Sometimes, tragic circumstances like his can make us overly generous in the way we speak about those who’ve passed. But that wasn’t the case with him. He truly had two qualities that are essential in a person – humility and gratitude – and in him, they were undeniable.
“The last time we were promoted to the top flight in 2018-19, he sent me a message, humbly asking if he could come and watch. Then, on the day we won the league title, he sent me a message five seconds after the game had finished, saying, ‘we’ve done it again’. This was someone who knew his origins.”
None of this will come as a surprise to those who shared a dressing room with him.
Former Liverpool and now Brentford goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher recalled how they would get together to follow Portuguese lower tiers.
“You became one of my closest friends in football. We bonded over everything sports-related, watching any football match we could find – often your brother Andre’s games on your iPad,” Kelleher wrote on social media.
It seems almost contradictory that someone so deeply connected to his upbringing could still adapt so seamlessly to wherever he went – whether it was Gondomar, Pacos, Porto, Wolverhampton or Liverpool.
“He was the most British foreign player I’ve ever met,” said Liverpool’s left-back Andy Robertson. “We used to joke he was really Irish… I’d try to claim him as Scottish, obviously. I even called him Diogo MacJota.
“We’d watch the darts together, enjoy the horse racing. Going to Cheltenham this season was a highlight – one of the best times we had.”
It didn’t matter to Jota that he had an academy named after him back home. Nor that a stand was built thanks to his transfer. Or even that he was scoring goals in the Champions League.
He was still the same guy who had overcome the odds to become a footballer.
“He was an incredible young man – strong personality, great character, and hugely competitive, always with a burning desire to win. But more than anything, he valued honesty, respected people who were straight with him, and had little time for those who beat around the bush,” said Seabra.
He was a football superstar who knew that he would not have made it to the heights he achieved were it not for the help of the Teresas along the way.
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