Diogo Jota has offered an insight into what life is like on international duty playing alongside Manchester City's Portuguese stars.
Fresh from his heroics against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup quarter-final, goal-getter Jota has joined up with Portugal's national team for their crucial World Cup qualification play-off match against Turkey. The winner will then face either Italy or North Macedonia five days later in a match that will determine who goes to Qatar this winter.
Jota will be joined in the squad by City's Joao Cancelo and Bernardo Silva - familiar faces from the Premier League and direct rivals of Liverpool for not just the league title, but also the Champions League and the FA Cup.
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Despite having an important jobs on their hands, it will be near impossible for the trio to avoid talking about the intriguing season run-ins their clubs will face when the club fixtures resume in April, as Jota testifies.
Speaking about rivals City, he told Viaplay Football: "Great team. Obviously, we all know they have some Portuguese guys as well, we all meet up now in the international team. We always discuss that kind of rivalry. But when the game comes we'll face it like every other one."
Portugal's forthcoming week looks like an intense one, but as soon as World Cup matters have been settled there will be not let-up for the three players in a quest for club honours.
Liverpool have eight fixtures in April and will face Pep Guardiola's side twice the space of a week either side of high-stakes Champions quarter-final legs against more Portuguese representation, in the shape of Benfica.
The Reds will first face City in a crunch Premier League tie on April 10 at the Etihad Stadium before locking horns again on either April 16 or 17 at Wembley stadium in the FA Cup semi-final.
It remains to be seen whether Portugal's success or failure in their World Cup play-offs act as a trigger to impact Jota or his Manchester rivals more, once the dust has settled.
