Liverpool’s stars have been pictured returning for pre-season training, just days after Diogo Jota’s tragic death.
Jota, 28, was laid to rest at Gondomar cemetery in Portugal on Saturday after he and his brother, Andre Silva, 25, were killed when their car crashed in the early hours of Thursday morning in northern Spain.
The accident came just 11 days after Jota had married childhood sweetheart Rute Cardoso, also 28, who is the mother of his two sons Dinis, four, and Duarte, two, as well as his baby daughter Mafalda, who is just eight months old.
The devastating news has left the footballing world in shock and several stars were present at Jota and his brother’s funeral on Saturday.
This included the Liverpool team, Reds boss Arne Slot and many of Jota’s Portuguese team-mates, such as Ruben Neves, Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva.
And on Tuesday, Liverpool’s stars were back in pre-season training and pictures emerged of them arriving.
This included Salah, who was one of several of Jota’s team-mates to pen an emotional tribute after news of his passing before he also opened up on how he would be ‘frightened’ to return to Liverpool’s AXA Training Centre for pre-season as a result.
‘I am truly lost for words,’ said Salah, who was a team-mate of Jota for five years at Anfield but was unable to attend his funeral.
‘Until yesterday, I never thought there would be something that would frighten me of going back to Liverpool after the break. Team-mates come and go but not like this.
‘It’s going to be extremely difficult to accept that Diogo won’t be there when we go back.
‘My thoughts are with his wife, his children, and of course his parents who suddenly lost their children. Those close to Diogo and his brother Andre need all the support they can get. They will never be forgotten.’
Salah and Jota played 151 matches together for Liverpool and combined for goals on 19 occasions.
Overall, Jota made 182 appearances for the Reds and netted 65 times, while he provided 26 assists.
He was part of the Liverpool squad that won the Premier League title last season and previously won the FA Cup and two League Cups.
Alongside Salah, the likes of Conor Bradley, Jeremie Frimpong, Joe Gomez, Wataru Endo, and Andy Robertson were also pictured arriving for the start of pre-season on Tuesday.
Robertson had penned his own emotional tribute to Jota last week on social media, where he labelled the Portuguese star as ‘a good guy. The best. So genuine. Just normal and real’.
Jota and his brother Andre died last week when their Lamborghini car had a tyre blow out on the A-52 at Cernadilla near Zamora in Spain.
The car is said to have burst into flames, with the brothers tragically unable to be saved.
They had been heading to Santander in order to get a ferry to Britain, with Diogo advised not to fly after lung surgery.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday it was reported that a Spanish road safety expert claimed the Lamborghini supercar they were driving looked like it was going ‘very fast’.
Road safety expert Javier Lopez Delgado pointed the finger at ‘multiple factors’ including the driving speed, saying: ‘If they had been going at 55mph they probably wouldn’t have been killed.
‘It seems very clear they were going very fast because of the skid marks.’
However, Mr Lopez Delgado, president of the Spanish Association of Road Safety Auditors (ASEVI), also said he believed the road surface had been a contributing factor to the men’s deaths, insisting: ‘You can clearly see it had many faults.’
In comments to local paper La Opinion de Zamora, the expert engineer said the blown-out tyre not having the ‘right conditions or correct pressure’, wouldn’t be the only factor in the crash.
He told La Opinion de Zamora the central reservation barrier the siblings crashed into acted as an ‘obstacle’ because ‘the length and angle of incidence were not correct.’
Referencing another accident in the same spot eight days earlier in which a 60-year-old woman was severely injured and had to be cut free from the wreckage of her vehicle by firefighters, Delgado also said: ‘It could be a coincidence but I’m not a big believer in coincidences.
‘When two different cars come off the road at the same kilometre point something’s up.’
Meanwhile, police preparing a report on the accident are yet to say how fast they think the acid green £180,000 Lamborghini Huracan was going.
It is not yet clear whether the Civil Guard or the investigating court awaiting the full police report will make the findings public and officials have not yet said who was driving.
The force said the same day of the 12.30am crash in the sparsely-populated municipality of Cernadilla just ten miles over the border with Portugal: ‘Everything is pointing to a tyre blowout as the car was overtaking.
‘As a result of the accident, the car caught fire and both occupants died.’
The safety of the road has also been brought into question elsewhere, with town hall sources in Cernadilla branding the A-52 highway as ‘very dangerous’.
One quoted by local press said last Thursday: ‘As it passes through Cernadilla it is full of bends at 120 kilometres per hour.
‘Exceeding the speed limit or poor visibility at night are often the cause of accidents in these areas.
‘Today it was two famous footballers, who had a great career ahead of them, but perhaps tomorrow the victims will be two more anonymous people.’
The road has also been described as an accident blackspot due to the regular presence of wild animals, in particular Iberian wolves and deer which are often the cause of collisions.
After beginning pre-season training on Tuesday, Liverpool’s first summer friendly is scheduled on Sunday against Preston, although it is unclear whether that game will still go ahead.
Arne Slot’s side will then head on tour to Asia where they will play games in Hong Kong and Japan, before a final pair of friendlies against Athletic Bilbao at Anfield on August 4.
Liverpool’s season then officially begins on August 10 with the Community Shield against Crystal Palace.
