Diogo Jota, who has died in a car crash aged 28, was a natural goalscorer who played a pivotal role in Liverpool’s successes in recent years as well as in Portugal’s Nations League triumphs.<\/b><\/p>\n
Jota signed for Liverpool in a \u00a345m deal from Wolverhampton Wanderers in September 2020 after helping Nuno Espirito Santo’s side return to the Premier League.<\/p>\n
His composure in front of goal made him a match-winner on many occasions under Jurgen Klopp and then Arne Slot. <\/p>\n
Indeed, some judges regarded him as Liverpool’s most natural finisher, despite the presence in the team of one of the greatest players in the club’s history, Mohamed Salah.<\/p>\n
When Jota signed, Klopp said: “He is a player who gives us so many options to use. He’s 23 years old, still far away from being kind of a finished article – he has so much potential.<\/p>\n
“He has the speed, he can combine with other players, can defend, can press. It gives us real options for different systems.”<\/p>\n
Jota brought all this and more to Liverpool.<\/p>\n
He was in the Liverpool team that won a domestic cup double of the FA and Carabao Cups in 2022, and despite latterly being troubled by injuries at Anfield, he still made vital contributions last season.<\/p>\n
It was trademark Jota when he headed the equaliser seconds after coming on as substitute at Nottingham Forest in January, then scored the winner in the Merseyside derby against Everton in April.<\/p>\n
Jota’s strike against their Merseyside rivals encapsulated all the qualities that made him an adored figure among Liverpool fans as they recaptured their old dominance domestically.<\/p>\n
He took two touches in a packed penalty area – his sleight of foot evading Everton’s defence – before he wrong-footed goalkeeper Jordan Pickford with a right-foot finish in front of The Kop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diogo Jota, who has died in a car crash aged 28, was a natural goalscorer who played a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-35196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}