“Every time we travel for away matches, I take the PlayStation with me,” Liverpool forward Diogo Jota tells me. “It makes time go smoothly, and keeps me entertained.” I’m wondering how he’s able to compete at such a high level in both football and esports, considering most pros in either arena dedicate their entire lives to mastering just one game. “This year I was the only player that was playing in the Champion’s League and the eChampion’s League,” he says with a smile.
Jota has recently connected with Dubai-based esports organisation and lifestyle company Galaxy Racer in an esports rebrand that sees Diogo Jota Esports transform into Luna Galaxy, push into two new esports, and increase his presence in the virtual world.
His love of gaming became apparent when he famously had to cut a FIFA tournament short in the 2021/22 season because he had to head to an IRL match. His opponent screenshotted the message that the Liverpool player sent to him and went viral, prompting Jota to perform a gaming celebration after one of his two goals in the match. The celebration, where he sits down on the pitch and plays with an invisible controller, was included in FIFA 23 in honour of the iconic moment. He says the celebration, or rather the fact he netted twice in a 4-0 rout of Southampton “saved my life”, because otherwise the critics would have been circling. “That was more pressure than I needed for that moment,” he says.
Truth be told, the Portuguese international likes to play FIFA to switch off, so he doesn’t ruminate too much on the coming matches. “I find it helpful to be honest, because if I'm just lying on the bed or something, I'm thinking about the game and I don't like to think too much.”
Jota’s been playing since about FIFA 07 – in his words, “as long as I can remember” – and the game comes naturally to him now, even at the highest level. But for intra-team tournaments, few of his fellow Liverpool players fancy a match. “I don't think we have a lot of gamers in the squad – at least for FIFA. I know one or two that play Call of Duty and those kinds of games. I know Trent [Alexander-Arnold] is able to play but he never wanted the rematch from the ePremier League Invitational final a couple of years ago when I was at Wolves.”
The future teammates faced off in the tournament during lockdown in 2020, where the Portuguese player overturned a one goal deficit to emerge victorious with the help of a Golden Goal. With Jota regularly going 20-0 in FUT Champions and competing in esports tournaments while he waits to take to the IRL pitch, you can hardly blame Liverpool’s Scouse right back for declining the rematch.
Jota feels some of his success on the virtual pitch comes from his knowledge on Anfield’s hallowed grass. “A lot of times when I play FIFA, I do things like I would on the pitch and a lot of the time that’s a surprise to my opponent. Because they’re pros, they are willing to play the pro game, trying to do only the meta things. They know that if they cross, for example, that's not as accurate and sometimes I do it and I score and they go, ‘oh my God, how can that happen?’”
His use of off-meta tactics may be an advantage, but he takes much more from his Liverpool training than Alexander-Arnold-esque crosses, especially when it comes to his esports team.
"We want to find the extra edge to get the advantage."
“I don't know if you ever saw someone like Trent with a helmet or something?” he asks, referencing the neuro11 hairnets that Liverpool players sometimes wear during training. The system of electrodes attached to players’ heads offers a new approach to data-based training, one that Jota trialled with his esports team to get that crucial edge over the opposition.
“I tried that for the last few months in Portugal with a similar company that works on focus and concentration levels,” he explains. “Those specific things, especially in esports, are still nonexistent and we want to find the extra edge to get the advantage. In the end it's my thing, I like to compete and I like to win and that's also why we are here.”
Jota’s esports ambitions have always been grand, but he’s aware that these things take time. His partnership with Galaxy Racer sees him become a shareholder in the company and create Luna Galaxy, a new brand under the Galaxy Racer umbrella. The name is as collaborative as the merging process, bringing Galaxy together with Luna, the name of Jota’s beloved dog who graced the logo of his esports team’s previous incarnation.
“Sometimes a lot of announcements of celebrities and athletes creating these teams and all that,” says Galaxy Racer CEO Paul Roy. “But I can tell you he's probably ten times more involved in this project than I am personally… He’s there every single step of the way and that's pretty amazing to see.”
Roy has turned Galaxy Racer into an esports powerhouse in the Middle East, with many European and American teams competing in top esports titles under his banner. It all started as a company “exclusively focused on women’s esports”, Roy tells me, hosting women’s events and bringing their own female team on board to compete. To this day, 60 percent of the company’s revenue comes from what Roy describes as “female brands”.
Galaxy Racer expanded far beyond that, and is now home to male and female esports teams, lifestyle brands, a music label, and a portfolio of seven game developers and publishers across the world. Roy believes that Galaxy Racer’s new title, coming soon, “will be the next big esport”. He attributes the company’s success to this multi-pronged approach, and when you look across the esports world, the biggest brands are doing the same. The likes of FaZe and 100 Thieves are so much more than esports teams now, and that’s why they’re staying relatively steady while many organisations collapse. The collaboration with Diogo Jota is just one slice of Galaxy Racer, but it represents both parties trying something new. The company has never fielded a FIFA team, and Jota is expanding his repertoire to include Rocket League and Dota 2.
He’s picking up free agents in the mid-season at the moment, and learning more about the games themselves. It’s the next step on a journey to become the best at anything he turns his hand to, and growing his esports presence to become a global phenomenon mentioned in the same breath as the likes of G2 or FaZe.
Let’s just hope that his focus on esports won’t detract from his performances at Anfield this year. After a rough season from both a personal and team perspective last time around, Jota is confident that 20223/24 is a fresh start for the reds. “I hope we’re back at the top soon.” That’s the goal for Luna Galaxy too.