Close family, friends, and football players gathered on Saturday for the funeral of Liverpool and Portugal forward Diogo Jota and his brother, Andre Silva, 48 hours after their car crash.
Jota, 28, and Andre Silva, 25, were killed on Thursday after their vehicle went off a road in northeastern Spain and caught fire, only a week after the Portugal forward married.
The funeral, which begins at 0900 GMT, will be conducted at his hometown of Gondomar, near Porto.
The Bishop of Porto will lead the liturgy, according to local media.
On Friday, hundreds held a wake for the brothers.
Among those who came to pay their respects were a boyhood friend, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, his agent Jorge Mendes, and Porto club president Andre Villas-Boas.
“Football is truly in mourning.” “Diogo was a symbol of the talent that Portuguese football represents,” stated football federation president Pedro Proenca.
Close family and friends, including the parents, were the first to pay their respects at Friday’s wake, with the grandfather supported by two others as he entered the chapel.
Mourners arrived with flower wreaths, some sobbing noisily, before the wake was available to the public.
The deaths of the Portugal international and his brother have sparked a wave of sadness in football and beyond.
Liverpool opened a book of condolences and lowered flags to half-mast, with dozens of fans putting flowers, balloons, his shirts, and scarves with the words “Rest in peace, Diogo Jota” outside Anfield.
Fans erected a monument with flowers, scarves, candles, and shirts at the Diogo Jota football academy, near Gondomar SC, where the former Porto and Atletico Madrid midfielder took his first steps in the game.
“Thank you, Diogo Jota,” said a child’s handwritten message.
Pedro Neves, who was acquainted with Jota at Gondomar High School, said he “will remember him as someone who was very friendly, very courteous, who loved everyone, and who always had a smile on his face”.
“He left us too young; it’s not fair. But that’s how life is sometimes,” Neves, 31, told AFP.
Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, who signed Jota in 2020, has stated that he is “heartbroken”, while the club has described the loss as “unimaginable”.
Arne Slot, Klopp’s successor at Anfield, stated that everyone affiliated with the club owed it to Jota to “stand together and be there for one another”.
Jota was recalled during the Club World Cup in the United States on Friday, with a one-minute silence conducted during the quarterfinal match between Brazil’s Fluminense and Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal in Orlando.
According to Portuguese and UK media, Jota was driving to the northern Spanish port of Santander to take a ferry to England, where Liverpool was scheduled to begin training on Friday, rather than flying due to medical advice following a recent lung operation.
Until his demise, he had married his partner Rute Cardoso on June 22, posting a video of their wedding on Instagram just hours before the accident. They had three children.
