Diogo Jota‘s heartbroken grandfather has revealed how he learned the Liverpool forward and his brother had been killed in a car crash when he turned on his TV.
Premier League star Jota, 28, and his brother Andre Silva, 25, were driving through northern Spain in an acid green Lamborghini Huracan when the fatal crash occurred on July 3.
The tragedy came less than a fortnight after Jota married his childhood sweetheart Rute Cardoso, whom he shared three young children with, and just two months after he won the English league title with Arne Slot‘s side.
The brothers’ deaths sent the football world into a period of shock and mourning, with a swathe of tributes having been paid throughout stadiums in the weeks and months since.
However, the devastation from that early July morning is still reverberating through Jota and Silva’s family, with their grandfather saying he thinks about them ‘every day’.
Speaking for the first time since losing his grandsons, Fernando Silva told how he ‘heard about it on television’ and initially ‘only knew about Diogo’.
He said: ‘I was watering the plants outside and my son-in-law, who was here with my daughter, said “Come inside, come inside, it’s late.”
‘So I went inside, sat down on the sofa, turned on the television and found out right away.’
Diogo Jota (right) and his brother Andre Silva (left) were driving through northern Spain when the fatal crash occurred on July 3
A banner depicting Jota holding the Premier League trophy was held aloft during Liverpool’s match against Crystal Palace on August 10
Liverpool fans also displayed a tifo which read ‘AS30’ – a nod to Andre Silva wearing the number 30 shirt at his club Penafiel
Fernando also revealed that his wife, Deolinda, only discovered that the brothers had died when a doctor was present, adding: ‘They are always with me in my thoughts, every day.’
Deolinda said: ‘If one had died it would have been very sad, but both going like this is truly heartbreaking.’
The OAP couple opened up on their anguish in an emotional interview with Portuguese magazine TV 7 Dias.
They admitted they still know very little about the early-hour motorway crash which happened as Jota headed to Santander with his brother in the £180,000 car as they looked to catch a ferry to the UK.
The Premier League star had been advised not to travel by plane to Britain following lung surgery.
Fernando, pictured crying and hugging Rute at his grandsons’ funeral at a church in their hometown of Gondomar near Porto, told TV 7 Dias: ‘I don’t even know how the accident happened, they didn’t tell me.
Wolverhampton Wanderers fans raised a display of Jota before their match against Manchester City on August 16 – he played with them from 2017 to 2020
Jota’s childhood sweetheart Rute Cardoso (above) watched on as the banner was displayed
A banner reading ‘Diogo and Andre, You’ll Never Walk Alone’ was held at Anfield on August 15
‘They say the car caught fire, but I don’t know anything else.
‘I only know what I saw on television. I didn’t ask my son Joaquim anything and he didn’t tell me anything either.’
Recalling his last conversation with the Liverpool forward the day before his death, he added: ‘I also played football, I played for many years and always followed them.
‘Diogo’s last words to me, which were over the phone, were “Grandad, I’m like you”, because of football.’
Rute, reduced to tears last month as her husband’s former club Wolverhampton Wanderers remembered him in a touching tribute at the Molineux, has now left Liverpool and moved back to Gondomar.
Fernando said: ‘She has an employee with her. She was with them in England and she’s here now because of the children.
Silva (above) was an attacking midfielder for Portuguese side Penafiel who play in the country’s second division
Rute Cardoso looked on as a bronze jersey resembling Jota’s Portugal shirt was unveiled by the Portuguese Football Federation on September 2
‘They had three employees but the other two have left. Only the one who helped look after the kids has stayed on.
‘Our great-grandchildren are living at Rute’s sister’s house because Rute is staying with her sister. Family are giving her all the support she needs.’
Spanish police said the car Jota and his brother were travelling in was probably speeding when they crashed.
In a statement shortly after the incident, the Civil Guard in Zamora said: ‘Everything is also pointing to a possible high excess of speed over the permitted speed on that stretch of the motorway.
‘All the tests carried out for the moment point to the driver of the crash vehicle being Diogo Jota.’
It is not yet clear whether the full police report, due to be handed over to a Spanish judge probing the accident, will be made pubic.
Locals living near the scene of the crash, on the A-52 in Cernadilla near Zamora close to Spain’s north-west border with Portugal, have criticised the state of the road.
