Two Songs, Two Rivals, One Player

The world suddenly felt a little emptier that morning.

My wife woke me up with the news.

Diogo Jota was dead.

He and his brother André Silva had been killed in a car accident in northern Spain.

Normally I don’t take celebrity deaths too hard. We didn’t cry. But something about that morning felt different.

Maybe it was because my wife is probably Canada’s biggest Liverpool fan — the club Diogo played for and the one he was returning to when the accident happened.

And for anyone who wants to challenge the claim that my wife is Canada’s number one Liverpool supporter, you’ll have to fistfight me.

From the moment we started dating there was one condition to the relationship: I had to support Liverpool. If I ever even thought about putting on a Manchester United shirt, the relationship would be over.

So when she woke me up with the news, I knew it mattered.

Diogo wasn’t just another player.

He was also a countryman of mine — Portuguese — and he was simply a joy to watch play. When so many Portuguese players approach the game with a sour face and a kind of pessimistic intensity, Diogo always seemed to play with a smile.

He wasn’t just a great goal scorer.

He played like someone who understood the privilege of getting to play a game for a living.

To feel represented — both through my Portuguese heritage and through my wife’s love of Liverpool — by a player like Diogo was pure delight.

And knowing we’ll never see that joy on his face again, even when he just came close to putting the ball in the back of the net, is disheartening to say the least.

At the eighteenth minute of today’s FA Cup match between Wolves and Liverpool, the stadium began to sing.

Thousands of Wolves supporters stood and sang for a player who once wore their shirt.

Two minutes later, when the clock struck twenty, the Liverpool fans answered with a song of their own.

For a brief moment the rivalry disappeared.

Red shirts. Gold shirts.

Two sets of supporters singing for the same man.

They were all singing for Diogo Jota.

Football fandom certainly has its problems. Racism. Hooliganism. Tribal nonsense that can make the sport look ridiculous.

But it also gives us moments like this.

Moments where thousands of people who desperately want their team to win can still stop and show love and respect for someone who gave them something beautiful.

Because for people who love football, it’s never just a game.

It’s an escape from the weight of everyday life. Work that never ends. Illness. Bills. The thousand small pressures that grind people down.

For ninety minutes you can set it all aside.

For ninety minutes you feel like you’re part of something.

And maybe that’s why football feels different from every other sport.

No other game is as universal.

No other sport allows kids from every corner of the world, from every walk of life, to dream the same dream.

When you support a football club, you’re not just supporting a team.

You’re supporting those dreams.

And when someone like Diogo Jota is taken from the world far too soon, it doesn’t just feel like the loss of a player.

It feels like losing one of our own.