How Luis Diaz joining Liverpool cost Diogo Jota money
In an exclusive interview with FourFourTwo, the Portuguese forward reveals he was once his team-mate's landlord
Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz are good friends in the Liverpool dressing room - previously, they were landlord and tenant in Porto.
Diaz joined Liverpool in January 2022 from Porto, where he’d been renting Jota’s house - the Portuguese forward hails from the area, and represented the club himself during the 2016-17 campaign.
“He rented the house I’d lived in when I played for Porto,” Jota told FourFourTwo. “He was paying me rent, then he ended up playing with me, and I often still bring that up during our conversations. He arrived in January and had a contract with me until July, but because he was going to be my team-mate, I let him out of the contract!”
Jota lost some income but gained a friend, who almost helped the club win the quadruple in 2021/22 - a year before Manchester City won the treble.
“When Luis arrived in England, he was really important for us with the energy he brought to the team in the latter stages of that season, when we nearly won everything,” Jota said.
“Two trophies wasn’t bad, but it could have been a story forever. I really think that if we had won the Premier League, we would have won the Champions League. We could have written football history, especially in English football.”
Read the full interview with Jota in the new issue of FourFourTwo, in shops now
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Jota wears the new adidas X Speedportal boots, part of the Heatspawn Pack, which also includes the Predator and Copa boots, available to buy now HERE
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Liverpool transfer news is ramping up ahead of a huge overhaul at Anfield this summer.
Benjamin Pavard of Bayern Munich has been linked, while James Ward-Prowse is said to be on the shortlist. Celta Vigo's Gabri Veiga is a target and Khephren Thuram of Nice is said to be close to joining – but Manuel Ugarte is one star who reportedly won't be moving to Merseyside.
Meanwhile, Diogo Jota has told FFT that Liverpool can win the title in 2024.
Chris joined FourFourTwo in 2015 and has reported from 20 countries, in places as varied as Jerusalem and the Arctic Circle. He's interviewed Pele, Zlatan and Santa Claus (it's a long story), as well as covering the World Cup, Euro 2020 and the Clasico. He previously spent 10 years as a newspaper journalist, and completed the 92 in 2017.
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