Liverpool and Portugal national team player Diogo Jota was killed in an accident. What you need to know

Liverpool and Portugal national team midfielder Diogo Jota died in a car accident at the age of 29. His car went into a ditch due to a burst tire and caught fire on a highway in Spain. Just a few weeks before his death, Zhota managed to win the English championship and the League of Nations, and also married the mother of his three children. What was the life of the deceased football player — in the material of Izvestia.

How Diogo Jota died

• The accident involving Diogo Zhota occurred on the night of July 3. He crashed in the Spanish province of Zamora on the A-52 highway near the town of Palacios de Sanabria. Eyewitnesses of the accident told emergency services about a car that caught fire in a ditch and a fire around it. According to preliminary data, the car's tire burst while trying to overtake. As a result of the fire, the Lamborghini car burned out completely.

• Jota was traveling with Andre Felipe's younger brother, who played for Portuguese first division club Penafiel, local media found out. The brothers were on their way to Madrid. Their relatives noticed that the players did not arrive at the promised time. Both Diogo Jota and Andre Felipe died on the spot.

The last penalty: Who really killed Diego Maradona

New facts have been revealed during the trial.

The tragedy occurred just ten days after the wedding of Jota and 28-year-old Ruta Cardoso. Since then, the girl has regularly posted photos and videos from the celebration on social networks, the last of which was published a few hours before her husband's death. Jota and Cardoso went to the same school and started dating in 2013. The couple had three children, the eldest of whom is four years old.

How Jota started his career

• Diogo Jota was born in Portugal in 1996. His real name is Diogo Jose Teixeira da Silva. To distinguish himself from other famous footballers with the same surname, he shortened his name on his T-shirt to Diogo J. In Portuguese, the first letter of Jose's name reads as Jota, and therefore he became known by this nickname. For the same reason, his brother Andre is known by the nickname Felipe.

• Jota started his professional career at Portuguese Pasos de Ferreira. He quickly became the foundation of the club and became its youngest player in the starting lineup, as well as the youngest goalscorer for the team in the national championship. In 2016, the midfielder was promoted to Atletico Madrid, who had recently reached the Champions League final.

• But Jota did not play in the Spanish club. He was immediately loaned to Porto, where he spent one season. He made his debut in the Champions League with the Portuguese team and scored his first goal in the match against the reigning English champions Leicester.

Jota's career in England

• Jota's next club was the English Wolverhampton Wanderers, where he went on loan again. In the 2017/18 season, the team played in the first division, but thanks to the Portuguese, it was able to break into the English Premier League (Premier League). Jota became the team's top scorer with 17 goals and fifth in the entire tournament. At the end of the season, he signed a full-time contract with Wolverhampton.

• In the 2018/19 season, Jota became the second Portuguese after Cristiano Ronaldo to score a hat-trick in a Premier League match. With his support, Wolverhampton rose to seventh place in the Premier League and made it to the Europa League — the club has not achieved this for almost 40 years. Jota also helped qualify for the FA Cup semi-finals, scoring the winning goal against Manchester United.

• The following season, Jota attracted the attention of fans in a match against Besiktas in the Europa League group stage. Coming on as a substitute, he was able to score as early as the 72nd second and eventually scored a hat-trick in 12 minutes. The club eventually reached the quarterfinals of the European Cup, and repeated seventh place in the Premier League — since then, Wolverhampton have not achieved such success.

Neighbors abroad: how was the football season for Russian legionnaires?

Matvey Safonov won everything, Arsen Zakharyan has health problems

• In September 2020, Jota joined Liverpool for 41 million pounds and immediately made his big debut in the English champions. He scored seven goals in the first ten matches, was the first in the club's history to score a goal in each of the first four home games in the Premier League, and at the same time scored the 10,000th goal in Liverpool's history. Already in October, the club's fans recognized him as the best player of the month.

• As a member of Liverpool, Jota won his main club trophies: the English Championship (2024/25), the FA Cup (2021/22) and the English League Cup (2021/22, 2023/24). However, this period was not entirely successful for him. Jota was often injured, and if he could go on the field, he often found himself in the role of a substitute. Nevertheless, he played 182 matches for Liverpool, scored 65 goals and made 26 assists.

• While playing for English clubs, Jota regularly received calls up to the Portuguese national team. As part of it, he became the winner of the first Nations League draw in 2019, although the midfielder did not enter the field directly then. He competed at the European Championships in 2021, but did not qualify for the 2022 World Championships due to injury. In June 2025, Jota again won the League of Nations as part of the Portuguese national team. The final match against Spain, in which he entered the field in the 106th minute, was the last for a football player in his life.