Liverpool's Jota mourned by family and local people at hometown wake

By Miguel Pereira and Sergio Goncalves

GONDOMAR, Portugal (Reuters) -undreds of residents of Gondomar in northern Portugal filed past the bodies of former Liverpool footballer Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva at a chapel in their hometown on Friday, after their deaths in a car crash in Spain.

At an earlier private wake, Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, FC Porto President Andre Villas-Boas, Portuguese Football Federation President Pedro Proenca and Jota's longtime agent Jorge Mendes joined the brothers' family including Jota's wife Rute Cardoso, who had married the footballer just weeks earlier.

"It is a moment of great pain for the family, who are left anchored to this tragic accident," Proenca said as he left the wake. "Diogo was an icon for the talent that Portuguese football represents and for its ability to generate unity around a person."

The brothers were believed to be driving to a ferry in Spain to travel to the UK when their Lamborghini veered off the road and burst into flames after midnight on Thursday. Police said they suspected a tyre had burst.

Silva was also a footballer, with Penafiel in the Portuguese second division.

Their funeral is expected to take place on Saturday at a nearby church at 10 a.m. local time (0800 GMT), the office of Gondomar's mayor said.

The death of forward Jota at the age of 28 has jolted the world of football, with tributes pouring in from former teammates, clubs, national leaders and fans.

"Diogo was a silent hero for everything he represented on and off the pitch," Villas-Boas said as he left the wake.

"These are tragic days, days for reflection, and may the memory of these two athletes, these two great men, live on," the former Chelsea manager added.

Outside Liverpool's Anfield stadium fans left flowers, scarves and handwritten notes, many from children.

"I never thought there would be something that would frighten me off going back to Liverpool after the (summer) break," Liverpool teammate Mohamed Salah said on Instagram.

"Teammates come and go but not like this. It’s going to be extremely difficult to accept that Diogo won't be there when we go back," he added.

Football clubs including Paris St Germain -- who have several Portugal internationals in their squad -- Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Real Madrid observed a moment of silence during training for their matches at the Club World Cup in the United States.

MOURNING HIS FRIEND

Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca said on Thursday that forward Pedro Neto was weighing up whether to play in Friday's quarter-final against Palmeiras, as the Portuguese international mourned the tragic death of his close friend.

Jota's manager at Liverpool, Arne Slot, said in a statement on Thursday that his thoughts were with his family.

"My message to them is very clear – you will never walk alone," Slot said, using the words of the team's anthem.

"For us as a club, the sense of shock is absolute. Diogo was not just our player, he was a loved one to all of us. He was a teammate, a colleague, a workmate and in all of those roles he was very special," the Dutchman added.

In Gondomar, a town of about 160,000 people in the Porto metropolitan area that is known for artisanal gold and filigree jewellery, residents were struggling to come to terms with the sudden death of a local hero.

At the Diogo Jota Academy in Gondomar – whose motto is "It’s not important where we come from, but where we are going" – people placed candles and flowers, as well as scarves and shirts from the clubs he played for and from the Portuguese national team in tribute to the player.

Jota opened the academy in 2022 for children aged six to nine at the Gondomar Football Club where he himself played for 10 years as a child.

It was at Gondomar's high school that he met his wife. They began dating aged 15 when in the same class and she became a pillar in his life.

When they were 19, they moved to Madrid together, when Jota was transferred from the small Portuguese club Pacos de Ferreira to Atletico Madrid.

"Besides being his girlfriend and best friend, I'm his number one fan," Cardoso told the newspaper 'A Bola' at the time.

Jota was making his way back to Liverpool by car after he was told he should avoid plane travel for up to six weeks following lung surgery to address a fractured rib, his physiotherapist Miguel Goncalves told broadcaster Now late on Thursday.

Goncalves said Jota was recovering well from the pneumothorax surgery and that he had planned to take a ferry to the UK from Spain.

(Reporting by Miguel Pereira, Sergio Goncalves and Catarina Demony; additional reporting by Rohith Nair; writing by Charlie Devereux; editing by Alexandra Hudson, William Maclean, Ken Ferris and Clare Fallon)