- Ousmane Dembele copied Diogo Jota’s gaming celebration after scoring
- Jota was arguably the gamer FIFA player in the PL and had his own e-sports team
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Ousmane Dembele became the latest footballer to pay his respects to Diogo Jota with his goal celebration on Saturday evening.
The Paris Saint-Germain forward mimicked Jota’s trademark gaming celebration after netting in his side’s 2-0 Club World Cup quarter-final win over Bayern Munich.
Tributes have flooded in from across the football world for Jota, 28, and his brother Andre Silva, 26, after their tragic deaths in the early hours of Thursday morning.
His former Liverpool team-mates and manager Arne Slot were in attendance at his funeral in Gondomar, Portugal on Saturday.
Former Portugal team-mate Pedro Neto displayed a shirt in tributes to the pair before Chelsea’s 2-1 win over Palmeiras, while Joao Cancelo and Ruben Neves welled up with tears before Al-Hilal’s 2-1 defeat by Fluminense.
Dembele and Jota were never team-mates but the Frenchman was still eager to remember him, copying the gaming celebration which the Liverpool star famously whipped out after scoring a 94th-minute winner against Tottenham in 2023.
Jota was a big fan of video gaming and was one of football’s biggest advocates for e-sports.
In 2020, he beat Trent Alexander-Arnold in the final of the FIFA 20 ePremier League Invitational.
Players had been invited to represent their clubs during lockdown at the tournament and Jota, still at Wolves, showed his future team-mate who the king of gaming was.
That tournament also included an 8-2 thrashing of Leicester City star Wilfred Ndidi – with Jota even scoring four goals with himself during the extravaganza.
In 2021, he was ranked first in the world for FIFA 21’s Champions Leaderboard in February.
The forward even founded his own e-sports team, Diogo Jota eSports, later rebranded to Luna Galaxy, and streamed himself playing on Twitch.
The lives of Jota, 28, and his brother Andre Silva, 26, were tragically cut short on Thursday after their car accident.
The Portugal star had been travelling to Santander to catch a ferry after being advised against flying back to England after having lung surgery.
Hundreds of mourners gathered in Gondomar, Portugal on Friday where a wake and a vigil were held for the pair at the Sao Cosme Chapel.
Among the crowd were Bernando Silva, Diogo Dalot, Jota Silva, Liverpool’s chief executive of football Michael Edwards and sporting director Richard Hughes, Jota’s wife Rute Cardoso, and his heartbroken family.
Meanwhile, over in Liverpool, fans and players turned up outside Anfield to lay flowers and scarves in memory of a recent title-winning hero who had spent five years at the club.
On Saturday, his fellow Liverpool stars, manager Arne Slot, and others turned out alongside his loved ones for his funeral in Gondomar, Portugal.
Last than two weeks ago, Jota married the love of his life and mother of his three children Rute Cardoso.
