THE news of the death of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva is devastating.
I’m sure every Liverpool supporter, every Penafiel supporter, and every Portugal supporter is shocked.
My Diogo Jota is the one full of instinct and indefatigable spirit; the one scoring a brace against Arsenal or sticking up for us in scoring the winning penalty in the shootout against Leicester. I am sure that is a massive part of his essence, but it is such a long way from the whole of the man who got married last week and called himself “the lucky one” when he did so.
There, in the midst of that first sentence, is the primary reason for grief today – a family has lost two brothers in one tragic incident. Not one footballer but two brothers, two sons. A pair full of vitality, full of celebratory spirit after Diogo’s wedding last week, and now just gone, lost in a moment.
The WhatsApp groups I am in are mourning a young father, not a player who has won every domestic honour with Liverpool.
Today should just be about that, about that family, the wider families impacted at Liverpool FC and Penafiel, and their friends and loved ones.
We love footballers; collective shared love is the greatest gift of the game and those explosions of joy create bonds which last lifetimes between us on the stands and in supporters clubs, and between us and them on the pitch.
Seeing the image of him from the final day of last season, his young family and the trophy he worked towards is a reminder that whole families feel as though they collaborate in this thing of ours.
The starkest grief though is theirs. The loss is theirs. The burden is theirs. We can pay tribute and remember and we should, but all of that can wait. Today is about their devastation; our shock is nothing to theirs.
We won’t be putting anything out today on The Anfield Wrap. We’ll pay tribute to the footballer and the person we saw through the prism of football in the days to come.
Cherish and look after your loved ones; families, colleagues, friends; the people in the WhatsApp groups. Reminders of how brittle the whole thing is hit hard and all we can do is look after one another.
All my love.
