A tribute to Diogo Jota

He wore #20 when we won #20 - his forever.

It almost doesn’t feel real.

The player who wore the number 20 when Liverpool won number 20.

Taken at just 28. Far too soon. He leaves a wife he married less than a fortnight ago, and three children. All our thoughts, first and foremost, go to them and the rest of his family.

The news is another example to us all of the fragility of life.

Football pales into insignificance in a moment like this, but we all got such joy from watching Diogo Jota play the game that remembering his greatest moments and looking back on his career is, as fans, our best way of paying tribute to a man who we didn’t know personally, but we loved regardless.

Jota gave Liverpool five wonderful years of service, during which he won the FA Cup, two League Cups, and, of course, the Premier League.

Here’s his record for the club in full:

Truly, it’s a phenomenal output. His goal rate, for someone who didn’t take a single penalty outside of shootouts for the club, is remarkable.

In fact, it puts him in the top five for all-time best minutes-per-non-penalty-goal in Liverpool’s entire history (among players with 10,000+ mins).

Factor in his 22 assists, and to be directly involved in a goal every 118 minutes of play is a superb feat. Again, it stands him shoulder to shoulder with some of Liverpool’s finest attacking players of the Premier League era.

His goal rate was aided by a fantastic record of scoring goals as a substitute - only four players in the club’s entire history have netted more times from the bench than Jota’s 12.

From his first goal for the club against Arsenal in September 2020, one of the goals en route to a thrilling League Cup comeback win over Leicester in December 2021, and a rapid equaliser against Nottingham Forest in January this year, Jota gave us so many memorable moments from the bench. He even recorded a hat-trick of assists - all for Mo Salah - after coming on as a sub against Rangers in October 2022.

That assist hat-trick wasn’t the only time he linked up so well with Salah - almost half of his assists in Red came for the Egyptian:

Salah returned the favour six times; only Trent Alexander-Arnold set up Jota to score more times for the club (10).

Liverpool fans will also fondly remember the versatility of Jota’s goalscoring. Almost a third of his goals for the club were with his ‘weaker’ left foot, and a fifth were headed - amazing figures for a player so short in stature.

And here’s who he scored most often against for the club:

Who can forget so many of his Arsenal strikes - his first goal in Red in September 2020, a League Cup semi-final winning brace in January 2022, a fabulous winner at the Emirates in March 2022, all included in his tally.

Jota’s consistency was there for all to see. He provided double figures for goal involvements in all five of his seasons for Liverpool - peaking with a superb haul of 27 in 2021-22.

His final goal for Liverpool was, fittingly, a classy winner over Merseyside rivals Everton, doing what Jota does best - slaloming around defenders before comfortably finishing past the goalkeeper. It’s a type of goal Kopites became so accustomed to seeing from the Portuguese forward.

813 players have played for Liverpool in all, and Jota sits inside the top 40 in the club’s all-time top scorers chart. That’s the top 5%.

Joining a Liverpool squad alongside the likes of Salah, Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino was never going to be easy, but Jota made himself a fan favourite so quickly with his eye-catching play-style and infectious personality.

He even etched his name permanently into the Liverpool history books in his very first campaign with the club - he scored Liverpool’s 10,000th competitive goal in all competitions via the opener (and winner) against Midtjylland in October 2020.

That goal was part of an astonishing run across October/November 2020 where Liverpool had four consecutive wins in which Jota scored the winner in every single one of them (v Sheffield United, Midtjylland, West Ham, and Atalanta). That’s a feat no player has achieved for the club since.

After that Atalanta game - where he scored a quite brilliant hat-trick - he had seven goals in his first 10 appearances for the club, despite only starting five of those 10.

Jota achieved all that he did despite rarely holding down a fixed role in the starting XI - the below graphic details a percentage of minutes he played in various positions across his time at Liverpool. While exactly half of his time was as a central striker, the other half was spread across games on the left-wing, right-wing, and even in midfield.

He will rightly stand among the club’s greats, providing countless memories for fans to treasure.

Thank you, Diogo. Thank you for showing us who you were and giving your all for the club for so many years. The number 20 will forever be yours.

You will be missed, but never forgotten. You’ll Never Walk Alone.