'Incredible footballer and really good person' - Billy Hogan's tribute to Diogo Jota

Hogan, alongside members of the club’s executive team, visited the memorial that has been created at Anfield in honour of Jota and his brother, Andre Silva, after they tragically died in a road traffic accident last Thursday.

After laying flowers alongside the huge number of condolences collated during recent days, Hogan spoke of his admiration and appreciation for Jota.

He also reflected on the enormous love and support shared by supporters and the football world, and explained the club’s approach to further commemorations.

It has clearly been a very emotional visit for you here, you have laid wreaths for both Diogo and Andre. Can you give us some kind of impression of the impact it has had on the club?

First, I would just say that obviously we’re here today – and so many people have been here before – to just offer condolences and thoughts and prayers for Diogo and for Andre, and most importantly for their family. It has only been a couple of days but, as we all know, it has been just absolutely devastating. We’re a club in mourning. We have all been completely shocked by the situation and, again, can only think of what this has meant to their family.

What we see behind us and the overwhelming outpouring of support and emotion and grief and love – having a chance to walk down the row here and read the cards and read the messages, our anthem, You’ll Never Walk Alone, it does mean something. In this case, I think everybody just feels so passionately about making sure that we remember the two boys but also that we support their family, and we’re going to work through this together.

You spent a long time looking at the tributes, left from all around the world. This isn’t just a Liverpool community, it’s from every corner of the globe?

We consider ourselves a family at the club and it’s a global family, and you can see that here. I won’t list the number of countries there are cards from, and flowers and scarves and kits. I think it’s something that people feel a sense of wanting to be here and wanting to be a part of this collective feeling of grief, and also to be part of something that’s part of hopefully a healing process as we move forward.

I know that this has impacted people throughout the world of football. The emails of support that I’ve got from teams, organisations, honestly, you name it. Our competitors across the park at Everton have been so massively supportive as well. So, this clearly goes beyond just Liverpool. Certainly we thank everybody across the world of football and beyond sport that has reached out to offer their support and condolences, and we pass that on to the family as well.

How will you remember Diogo?

Obviously he was an incredible footballer and gave us incredible memories. One of the messages was how many times we said, ‘Just bring Jota on’ – I think we probably all said similar things over the years. Obviously football was a huge part of his life, it was how we got to know him. But he was beyond that obviously a son, a brother, a father, a husband. It sounds trite to say it but he was just a really good person; he was kind, he was thoughtful. He and I had a number of conversations about his e-sports that he was really involved in and we would chat about some of the things that were going on with his team.

When he talked to you, he would look you in the eye. When you spoke to him, he would listen. He was just a really good, good person. I think that’s why people loved him so much, and he returned that love. He played with a joy. He was obviously incredibly well loved by all of his teammates. We were incredibly welcomed in Gondomar when we were at the wake and the services. You could see his national teammates, Andre’s teammates, the wider friends and family, the impact they had – two special people that obviously are gone far too early.

It’s very early at the moment and everybody is dealing with it in different ways. From a club perspective, is it too early to talk about tributes in the medium and longer term for Diogo?

It is early, it has obviously only been a few days. I think the most important thing in this process is that we want to make sure we are respecting the family. As a club, there’s been lots of ideas and certainly within the supporter base lots of ideas. That’s something we’ll take forward with the family and we want to have those conversations at the appropriate time. Obviously they have gone through an unimaginable situation over the course of the last several days.

We certainly will, obviously, remember both Andre and Diogo and at the appropriate time we’ll make those plans clear. We’ve got the match on Sunday at Deepdale and we’ll of course remember them at that match. Then the tour, then we come back to Anfield and then the season starts, so we’re thinking about all of those moments. Of course, we want to make sure we do the right thing and appropriately remember both Andre and Diogo.

Family has been at the very centre of this, and our family as Liverpool supporters as well. What would your message be to them?

Even just having spent a half-hour or so walking up and down this memorial for Diogo and Andre, I just think it’s a show of the solidarity, connection and community, that family nature of what makes our supporter base so special. I know that we’re all grieving. They were both taken far too early. The one thing I would say is that there’s a sense of community being here. You said earlier, people who maybe didn’t know each other are meeting here and I think it’s a message for all of us: lean on each other, don’t go through these things alone. We’re going to do everything we possibly can to support each other and, most importantly, support Diogo and Andre’s family through this process.