Mr. Jota and his brother André Filipe, 26, died in Spain, the authorities said. The crash came two weeks after the Portuguese player’s wedding.
The Liverpool F.C. soccer star Diogo Jota, 28, was killed in a car crash in Spain early Thursday, according to the Spanish police.
Mr. Jota, a Portuguese forward, died alongside his brother André Filipe, a professional soccer player in Portugal. The crash came less than two weeks after the Liverpool star was married.
“Liverpool Football Club are devastated by the tragic passing of Diogo Jota,” the team said in a statement, calling Mr. Jota’s death an “unfathomable loss.”
According to Spain’s Guardia Civil, emergency crews responded to an accident around 12:30 a.m. Thursday on the A-52 highway near Cernadilla, a town in northern Spain near the border with Portugal.
The Guardia Civil said in a statement that according to initial information, “a car left the road due to a tire blowout while overtaking. Car went on fire, and both vehicle occupants were killed by the accident.” It identified the victims as Mr. Jota and his brother.
Mr. Jota recently married his longtime girlfriend, Rute Cardoso, on June 22. In photos posted by Mr. Jota on Instagram, the couple stands in front of an altar with their three children.
“Yes, forever,” Mr. Jota captioned the post, in Portuguese.
The council of Zamora, the province where Cernadilla is located, said in a social media post on Thursday morning that fire crews were dispatched after a vehicle crashed and caught fire, which spread to nearby vegetation. Two men aged 28 and 26 died, it said.
Born in Porto, Portugal, Mr. Jota began his soccer career in youth and professional leagues in Portugal and Spain before moving to the English club Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. in 2017. He joined Liverpool in 2020, and was a central part of the club’s Premier League title-winning season in 2024-25, scoring six goals in 26 league games.
He made 49 appearances for Portugal’s national team, starting in 2019. His last match was Portugal’s victory over Spain in the UEFA Nations League final on June 8. Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese superstar who played alongside Mr. Jota on the national team, posted a photo of his teammate on Thursday morning.
“Doesn’t make any sense,” he wrote in Portuguese. “Just now we were together in the National Team, just now you were married. To your family, to your wife and children, I send my condolences and wish them all the strength in the world.
F.C. Porto, a professional soccer club from the brothers’ hometown, expressed “shock and deep regret” over their deaths. Mr. Jota played for the club during the 2016-17 season, and his brother played with Porto’s youth teams. In a post on X, it included a photograph of both men in the club’s uniform.
