Hello and welcome to our first Amfield Rap Reaction Show to the tragic news about Diogo Jotter and Andrei Silver, who passed away on Thursday earlier this week. The normal thing I do in these instances is say that no one has to listen to this. You can choose not to listen to it. You can choose to put it to one side to listen to it another time. You can choose to think, you know what, I don't want to engage with this at this point. It's all perfectly reasonable.

You opt in, you opt out, completely understand either way.

The news has been deeply tragic and it's been very upset and very numbing for a number of people in front of me.

I'm being produced by Andy Heaton.

I've got John Gibbons and Craig Hannan.

We chose yesterday that we would rather not have commented or discussed the news

as it broke and then as there were reactions across the afternoon and understandable tributes

were paid by a wide variety of people including the footballers. We're going to discuss all

of that and maybe even move on to the idea of the footballer himself, the player that we had in Diogo Jotter.

But John, I just want to sort of start with just the sheer human shock of it all.

You know, I think it was overwhelming for a huge number of people.

For me, the thing I just couldn't get out of my head all the way through yesterday,

genuinely just couldn't shift, is just that poor family, Diogo and Andre's parents, Diogo's wife and children, all

the attending friends and family, the wedding, only such a small number of days earlier on in

what we can sort of describe as being in party mood to this shift now, the depth of sadness and grief that they must be feeling

and which will not be going anywhere anytime soon is it's devastating just to comprehend

yeah it's almost impossible to comprehend isn't it you know that that feeling of lost that

they must feel you know a mother has lost two sons, you know, to lose one

is unthinkable, to lose two together, you know, is almost impossible to get your head around

for his young wife who, you know, they've known each other since they were kids, she must feel

that, you know, I'm

sure that she's lost a best friend as well as a soulmate in the person she was all set to spend

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