It’s been almost six months since the tragic car accident that claimed the lives of Liverpool star Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva. The former Portugal international and his brother died during the trip in the early hours of July 3, after Jota underwent lung surgery and was unable to fly. Jota turns 29 today (Thursday) and would have married his wife Lute Cardoso just 11 days before the devastating incident.
The sudden death of such a prominent Premier League player has left the football world reeling, with the subsequent police investigation revealing the tragic circumstances of his death. The Lamborghini Huracan they were riding in ran off the road and burst into flames. Jota, who had been advised not to fly following lung surgery, was driving to Santander with plans to take an overnight ferry from Benavente to England and eventually dock in Portsmouth.
The tire blowout is believed to have occurred while passing another vehicle on the A-52, about 110 miles west of Valladolid. As a result, their car veered off the road at around 12:40 a.m. and was soon engulfed in flames.
Firefighters, working together with emergency services and the Civil Guard, managed to extinguish the fire. Unfortunately, both occupants were pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the scene.
“The investigation of the accident is being carried out by traffic police officers of the Civil Guard,” the Zamora Civil Guard said in a statement. “Based on the marks left on the road, we believe that the car suffered a flat tire. The full police report will be submitted to the court in Zamora as soon as it is completed, which is launching an ongoing judicial investigation into the accident.”
“It will probably take about four or five days for that report to be completed, but probably longer. At this point it is impossible to say exactly how fast the car was going, but it is something that private security investigators will be able to provide in the final report, at least approximate details, such as skid marks. What I can confirm is that no other vehicles were involved and no one else was injured.”
The fire damage to the wreckage was so extensive that it initially hampered efforts to identify the two victims, the report said. In a devastating turn of events, it emerged that Jota’s wife Ruthe was forced to identify the two men herself after police proved unable to do so.
Regarding the change in Jota’s travel arrangements after his surgery, Rui Laura of CNN Portugal explained, “The surgery he underwent was a lung operation and he was advised not to fly after that.”
“He took a ferry to Santander, a port city in northern Spain, and from there he arrived in England, where he got in a car and continued on his way. He was on his way to Liverpool with his brother.”
Jota remained in Portugal after contributing to Spain’s penalty shoot-out victory in the Nations League final on 8 June. A few weeks later, he married his long-term partner Root and they have three young children.
Liverpool right-back Andy Robertson and current Brentford goalkeeper Caouhin Kelleher both attended Jota’s wedding. But what was supposed to be a summer of pure joy for Jota and his family took a tragic turn just one week later.
