Liverpool's Diogo Jota Quits FIFA 22 Tournament To Score In Real Life Against Southampton And Celebrate Like A Gamer

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Liverpool's Diogo Jota Quits FIFA 22 Tournament To Score In Real Life And Celebrate Like A Gamer

By Vaspaan Dastoor

Published Nov 28, 2021

He does it on the field and off.

via Liverpool Echo

Liverpool star Diogo Jota has everything going for him at the moment. He's not only at the top of his game when it comes to real life football, but he's also one of the top players in the FIFA Ultimate Team Champions leaderboard. These two aspects of his life almost crashed into one another yesterday, when Jota had to quit a scheduled international qualifier match in FIFA 22 and rush down to Anfield for an actual match against Southampton.

The news came via a screenshot on Twitter by Yanis "Lyamooo" Aguili (thanks, Eurogamer), which revealed a brief conversation between them and Jota. The two were pitted against each other as part of the qualifiers for the FIFA 22 Global Series, but Jota had to leave for his real kick-off at 3pm BST.

Good thing for Liverpool that Jota didn't get late, as he went on to score twice, eventually resulting in a 4-0 win for the team. But that wasn't it for this funny series of events, as Jota celebrated his goal by sitting down on the pitch and acting like he was holding a controller while playing FIFA 22. Well, we assume it was FIFA 22, it could have even been Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart for all we know.

Jota also has his own esports team, which would have understandably been disappointed that he had to quit the qualifier. But all seems well as it tweeted "You're forgiven for dropping the qualifier," after his first goal.

Jota has been having a hell of a season too, with seven Premier League goals already to his name. He's only four behind top-scorer and teammate, Mohamed Salah and tied with his other teammate Sadio Mané. As a Manchester United fan, this was quite disappointing for me to write.

In February we reported that Jota was dominating the FIFA Ultimate Team Champions in FIFA 21. The Portuguese star had reached the number one spot on the leaderboard. Although, he did have a bit of help from himself. EA awards professional footballer players with a 99-rated card of themselves; this perhaps gave Jota an advantage over many other FIFA players.

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