Portugal and Spain gamers noticed a interval of silence earlier than their Ladies’s European Championship opening sport Thursday in reminiscence of Portugal and Liverpool ahead Diogo Jota.
Each units of gamers additionally wore black armbands for the match. Gamers and supporters stayed silent for round 20 seconds earlier than the followers began applauding.
Jota and his brother André Silva had been killed in a car crash shortly after midnight in northwestern Spain when the Lamborghini they had been travelling in veered off a highway and burst into flames, Spanish police mentioned earlier.
Their deaths prompted an outpouring of grief from followers, gamers and officers throughout each girls’s and males’s soccer.
“We have misplaced considered one of our personal. He was somebody who adopted the Navegadoras [Portuguese women’s team] intently. We’re deeply saddened — there aren’t many phrases. All we are able to say is that he won’t ever be forgotten,” Portugal coach Francisco Neto mentioned.
Some Portugal followers displayed banners in tribute to Jota earlier than their group’s Euro 2025 opener. “Thanks for every thing,” was written on one. “Relaxation in peace,” mentioned one other.
“At the moment, for them,” Portugal ahead Francisca (Kika) Nazareth had mentioned on Instagram some hours earlier than the match.
“Considered one of our personal,” teammate and fellow ahead Jéssica Silva wrote, “Diogo wasn’t only a star. He was one of many good ones, the loyal ones, the attentive ones, the easy-going ones … a type of who do not want noise to make their mark.
“Thanks, Diogo. Thanks, André. Soccer has turn out to be poorer … and so have we. You’ll by no means be forgotten.”
Chatting with reporters on the best way in to the stadium, the president of the Portuguese parliament Jose Aguiar Branco mentioned the nation would honour the pair for his or her contribution to the game.
“Tomorrow within the Meeting of the Republic, we’ll vote on the movement of condolence that I’ll current with a purpose to honour the reminiscence of those two younger individuals and likewise the legacy that they go away to nationwide sport,” he mentioned.
Data from The Related Press and Reuters was used on this report.