JOTA
Jota, the star winger with a knack for scoring stylish, memorable and big-game goals, returned to the club at the age of 25 in January, 2025 after little over a year-and-a-half away from the Hoops.
Jota, or Joao Pedro Neves Filipe to give him his full name, started his youth career with hometown team, Benfica in 2007, and by his mid-teens was appearing in their B team before making the first-team grade while still 19-years-old.
He scored twice in 33 first-team appearances for the Primeira Liga club before moving over the border on loan to Valladolid in Spain’s La Liga in 2020/21, and two goals in 18 games there set him up for his next loan move – to Celtic in September, 2021.
It was a loan deal with an option to buy, and, utilised on the right wing, Jota quickly became a hero with the Celtic faithful after making his debut in a 3-0 home win over Ross County before netting his first goal for the club in a 3-0 League Cup defeat over Raith Rovers.
That was the first of 13 goals in that first season in which he played in 40 games, with six of those coming from the bench and many of the goals belonging to the ‘vital’ category including doubles in league wins over Dundee and Aberdeen, as well as his first European goal in a 3-2 win over Ferencvaros.
The season also featured the first of his four derby goals, in a game that virtually decided the destination of the title, and his last goal of the term was on trophy presentation day in a 6-0 win over Motherwell.
On the back of those performances, his buy-out clause was triggered, and Jota became a fully-fledged Celt, going on to help lift the Treble as he netted 15 goals in 43 games, and, among those goals were derby strikes in successive games for the Portuguese winger against Rangers.
The first of those was the winner in a 3-2 league victory, and the next the only goal of a Scottish Cup semi-final win over the Ibrox side.
Jota also scored the third in the final – a 3-1 win over Inverness Caledonian Thistle, with his goal coming in the 91st minute, but, sadly, that turned out to be a parting gift as he moved to Al-Ittihad that summer before joining French club, Rennes, a year later.
However, in the January transfer window of 2024/25, Jota was given a hero’s welcome on his much-speculated return to Paradise.
