TOGETHER since their teens, Diogo Jota and new wife Rute Cardoso chased a footballing dream.
When his burgeoning career in their native Portugal resulted in a move to Spanish giants Atletico Madrid, she described herself as his “best friend” and “number one fan”.
It was a shared ambition that would take them back to home town club Porto and then Wolverhampton Wanderers before his trophy-laden glory years at Liverpool’s Anfield.
A couple who met at school aged 13, their marriage a mere 11 days ago sealed a romance that had already produced three cherubic children. Joyous wedding photographs, showing a young family on life’s great journey, are now heartbreaking to look at.
Sons Dinis, four, and Duarte, two, are in the same dark blue jackets, cream waistcoats and blue ties as their footballer father.
A baby girl, not named publicly, wears a miniature tiara and ivory-coloured gown to match her mother.
Now Ruta is a widow at 28. The children lost both a father and an uncle in the terrible early hours crash on a lonely Spanish motorway.
Just 20 hours earlier, Diogo and Rute wrote on social media that their wedding was a “day we will never forget”.
Under one photo, she wrote, “My dream came true” — to which Diogo had replied: “But I’m the lucky one.”
Social media images show family life including trips to Lapland and Sardinia, photos with pet beagles and in red strips of Liverpool on the pitch at Anfield and at Wembley.
It was a love forged in Portugal’s beautiful second city Porto where forward Jota was born in December 1996.
His birth name was Diogo José Teixeira da Silva. As a promising, pacey young footballer he dropped his surname and used Jota which is the local pronunciation of “J”.
Soon, his talents outgrew his local club Gondomar and, aged 16, he moved to lower league club Pacos de Ferreira.
Scout Ivo Rodrigues remembers watching Diogo in 2013.
He said: “My eyes were drawn to him like a magnet. He was the youngest on the pitch but I saw he was going to be a star. He could do things that other ones could not.”
But attempts by Ivo to sign him for Guimaraes proved fruitless.
The year before, an Instagram image showed him with Rute in hoodies and jeans acting like typical teenagers.
In 2015, Jota’s career might have stalled before it really began.
Pre-season tests revealed a heart problem.
Showing maturity beyond his years, he wrote: “I knew it could mean quitting football, but I didn’t believe for a second it was going to happen.”
A natural goalscorer, he would earn selection for Portugal’s international youth teams and soon the big time beckoned.
He was snapped up by Spanish giants Atletico Madrid in 2016 when he was 19.
Rute wrote of his move: “I’m anxious. Diogo only left this week, but I already miss him. We’ve been dating for four years and . . . it makes sense to follow him. In addition to being his girlfriend and best friend, I’m his number one fan, I want to be there.”
However, Diogo would never play for the Atletico first team and a month after joining went out on loan to Portuguese giants Porto.
At the time, his brother Andre Silva, 25 — also killed in yesterday’s fireball crash — was with Porto’s youth set-up.
Scoring eight goals in 27 appearances, Diogo’s performances earned him another loan move the next season — this time to England with Wolves, then in the Championship.
His 17 league goals helped Wolves win promotion to the Premier League and secured a permanent move for a reported £12million.
Wolves finished seventh the next season as they qualified for the Europa League — a competition in which Diogo bagged an 11-minute hat-trick against Turkish side Besiktas after coming on as a sub.
In now poignant comments, he said after that game: “It makes me proud. It’s a story to tell my grandkids when I get old.”
He and Rute were able to enjoy the fruits of his success. Instagram photos she posted show her posing on his shoulders at Disneyland Paris and sight-seeing at the London Eye.
Captioning an image of them together on a sun-kissed beach in the Maldives, she wrote: “And suddenly you see your entire future in one person.”
In September 2020, Liverpool snapped Diogo up for £45million. He and Rute had made it to one of world football’s greatest clubs in the richest and most glamorous league.
Then-Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said of Diogo: “He has the speed, he can combine with other players, can defend, can press. It gives us real options for different systems.
“He’s 23, still far away from being kind of a finished article — he has so much potential.”
A player blessed with the knack of scoring vital goals, he soon became a Kop favourite.
A terrace chant for him, including a reference to Portuguese great Luis Figo, went: “He’s a lad from Portugal, better than Figo don’t you know, oh his name is Diogo!”
In the 2021-22 season, he scored 21 in 55 games — part of an impressive 65 goals in 182 appearances for Liverpool.
Hampered by injuries last season, his final goal for Liverpool showed just what a classy player he was.
In the Merseyside derby, he slalomed past Everton defenders in a packed box before slotting the ball home. His final match was for Portugal — his 49th cap — a victory over Spain to win the Uefa Nations League.
The close season gave him a chance to marry Rute.
Beneath a photo of the elegant couple at the altar, the new bride wrote on social media: “Yes to forever.”
Diogo once described himself as “a small guy that came from Gondomar, where I had this dream”.
With Rute at his side, he perhaps achieved more than he possibly imagined.
A tragedy that, at 28, this supremely talented player and dearly loved husband and dad had so much more to give.
