Diogo Jota showed true colours with 'risk' that paid off before Liverpool move

The late Liverpool striker Diogo Jota once revealed that he took a "risk" in joining Wolves in 2017, with the side then residing in the Championship. The football world is still in mourningafter a car accident claimed the lives of Jota, 28, and his brother Andre Silva, 26, on Thursday, July 3.

Jota's move to Wolves ultimately paid off as he became astar at the Molineux and helped propel the team to the Premier League. His gamble on a club in the second tier showcased the late striker's remarkable humility and ambition, as he swapped the Champions League for the Championship.

Jota initially joined Atletico Madrid from Pacos de Ferreira in 2016, the place where he began his professional career. However, he was quickly loaned out to Porto, where he began to demonstrate his talents.

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Then-Porto manager, Nuno Espirito Santo, was impressed with Jota. So when agreeing to take over at Wolves as manager he brought Jota, and his team-mate Ruben Neves, on loan with him to the Midlands-based side.

Speaking back in September 2018, Jota opened up on how he was prepared to take a "step down" to join the then-Championship outfit in order to get his career on track. Admirably, his ethos was: If you want to achieve your dreams then you have to take a risk, as he signed on permanently with Wolves a year later.

"We had to take the risk to come here," Jota said to The Guardian. "Sometimes when you want to achieve something, you have to take a risk. And at that time it was the best thing to do.

"We came here, we saw the project of the club, we saw the players they bought, so we put our minds in the Championship, focused on [getting to] the Premier League and did our work.

"In the beginning, a lot of people criticised us, including in Portugal. They said: ‘You are a great player, and you go there now?’ But now I think everyone understands we were right. We want to play football … in the best league in the world, so the city doesn’t matter."

Such was the class of Jota's performances for Wolves, scoring 44 goals in 131 appearances, that he forced Liverpool to sit up and take notice with Jurgen Klopp swooping for him in a £45million deal in September 2020.

His ex-team-mate Neves was among the mourners in Gondomar for Jota and Andre Silva's funeral on Saturday. The 28-year-old made the trip straight to Portugal just hours after playing for his side, Al Hilal, in the Club World Cup in America

He also served as one of the pallbearers as Jota and Andre were laid to rest in a private ceremony in their hometown. With scores of heartfelt tributes across the globe pouring in for Jota and Andre Silva, Neves' was remarkable in its unflinching emotion and candour.

Taking to social media, he wrote: "Bro, wherever you are, I know you'll read this, we've never been this sloppy and maybe now I regret it a little, but you know what you mean to me as much as I know what I mean to you.

"More than a friendship, we're family, and we won't stop being that just because you've decided to sign a contract a little further away from us. When I go to the national team, you will continue to be by my side at the dinner table, on the bus, on the plane... you will always be there with me, as usual.

"Let's keep laughing, making plans, sharing our life with each other. I'm going to make sure you're always present and I'll make sure that your loved ones never lack anything while you're there, far away but thinking of us, waiting for us.

"Life has brought us together and now it can't tear us apart. We've achieved some great things together, we still have a lot to go, I know we can. From today on, you will enter the field with me and we will follow our path together, on the stage where we met. Diogoal, you are my favourite lemonade! Amo-te."

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