GONDOMARTwo days after the siblings’ deaths in a car accident in Spain, Liverpool and Portugal’s national team players attended their teammate Diogo Jota’s and his brother’s funeral on Saturday with their loved ones.
Arriving with a red floral arrangement shaped like a soccer shirt featuring Jota’s No. 20 in white was Liverpool captain Virgil Van Dijk. Jota’s brother, Andr Silva, who played for the Portuguese team Penafiel, wore the number 30, which Liverpool colleague Andrew Robertson carried in a similar configuration. The Liverpool team included coach Arne Slot.
A day after competing in the Club World Cup in the United States, Portugal international R Ben Neves carried Jota’s casket. Earlier in their lives, he and Jota were teammates at Wolverhampton.
After playing in Orlando on Friday, when Fluminense eliminated their Al Hilal, Neves and Jo o Cancelo went to the burial. Before the quarterfinal match, there was a minute of silence during which both players sobbed.
Jota lived in the Portuguese town of Gondomar, where the service was performed at the Igreja Matriz church.
The funeral began with the pealing of church bells at 10:00 a.m. local time. Both brothers’ caskets were carried inside the church by pallbearers from a nearby chapel. Members of the local Gondomar FC, where Jota began playing at the age of nine, as well as hundreds of friends and acquaintances, were among them.
Roberto MartÃnez, the coach of Portugal’s national team, as well as a number of other prominent Portuguese athletes, such as Bruno Fernandes of Manchester United and Bernardo Silva and R ben Dias of Manchester City, were present.
As you may guess, they are quite depressing days, Martnez remarked. However, we demonstrated today that we are a big, tight family. Their soul will always be with us.
The burial mass was presided over by Manuel Linda, the bishop of Porto. The church was packed, and a few dozen others watched the service from outside over loudspeakers. The coffins were then moved to the cemetery adjacent to the church.
Jota, 28, and Silva, 25, were discovered dead early on Thursday in Zamora in northwest Spain after their Lamborghini crashed and caught fire on a remote section of roadway shortly after midnight.
A automobile accident killed two brothers.
According to reports, the brothers were on their way to England, where Jota was to reunite with Liverpool following a summer vacation, by boat from northern Spain.
The cause of the collision, which did not involve another car, is being looked into by Spanish police. They stated that they think a blown tire might have been the cause.
Once the family identified them, their bodies were returned to Portugal.On Friday, a wake was conducted for them.
While on vacation following a hard season in which he helped Liverpool win the Premier League, Jota passed away two weeks after he married his longtime partner, Rute Cardoso. The youngest of the couple’s three children was born last year.
The soccer community and Portuguese government expressed their deepest sympathies for their loss.
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Wilson reported from Spain’s Barcelona.
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