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Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo is lost for words following the sad demise of teammate Diogo Jota in a car accident in Murcia, Spain, in the early hours of Thursday.
As per the Guardia Civil who told the BBC, Jota's Lamborghini car exited the road due to a tyre blowout while overtaking another vehicle and caught fire. Both Jota, and his brother, Andre Silva, who were in the car, were confirmed to have died.
Incidentally, Jota had just married his partner, Rute Cardoso - with whom he has three children - two weeks ago. With tributes and condolences pouring in from all quarters, Ronaldo shared his shocked reaction in a post on Instagram (as translated from Portuguese):
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"Doesn't make any sense. 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. I know you will always be with them. R.I.P. Diogo and Andre We will all miss you."
Jota was coming off a Premier League-winning season with Liverpool, for whom he has scored 62 times in 165 appearances across competitions since arriving from Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2020 in a reported deal worth £41 million.
How Cristiano Ronaldo and Diogo Jota fared together
Cristiano Ronaldo and Diogo Jota never played club football together but featured in 32 games for the Portugal national team. The duo recorded seven joint goal contributions, with Ronaldo scoring five and Jota two.
The two were most recently in action in the Selecao's victorious UEFA Nations League campaign. Diogo Jota didn't score but assisted once in seven games, with that goal contribution coming in a 5-2 second-leg extra time win in the quarter-final. He assisted Goncalo Ramos' strike in the 115th minute.
Roberto Martinez's side would go on to beat hosts Germany 2-1 in the semi-final before outlasting Spain on penalties in the final, with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring in both games.
