Family, friends and teammates gathered to pay their respects to Diogo Jota and his brother, André Silva, whose funerals were held on Saturday morning.
Family, friends and current and former teammates gathered to pay their respects to Diogo Jota and his brother, André Silva, whose funerals were held in Gondomar, Portugal, on Saturday morning.
Jota, 28, and André, 25, were killed in a car crash near Zamora, Spain, in the early hours of Thursday.
Liverpool teammates past and present including club captain Virgil Van Dijk and manager Arne Slot carried two red floral tributes into the chapel, each in the shape of a shirt.
The one carried by Van Dijk had the No. 20 written in white flowers, which Jota wore on his Liverpool shirt. The other bore the No. 30, which was worn by Jota’s brother, who played for FC Peñafiel in Portugal’s second division.
Dressed in black and with their heads bowed, the teammates entered the church in silence. The only sound was the applause from the crowd outside.
Rute Cardoso, who married her childhood sweetheart Jota only weeks before the fatal crash, arrived with relatives.
Hundreds of residents of Gondomar, a small town in northern Portugal where Jota grew up, gathered outside.
The private service for family and close friends was presided over by the Bishop of Porto, Manuel Linda.
In an emotional homily addressed to Jota’s parents, his wife and their three young children, Linda said „solidarity in love is always stronger than death“.
