Jota – full name José Ignacio Peleteiro Ramallo – told the Spanish website Relevo: “Estoy retirado’ (I am retired). I had a multi-year deal and an offer from Saudi Arabia. The deal was done but, the night before, I saw it clearly; what am I doing? I didn’t want to play just to play. I was going to go just for the money. That’s when I realised that I didn’t want to continue and I said to myself; ‘Jota, make it clear to people that you don’t want to play.”
In a video interview in Spanish shot on a ranch Jota said: “In the middle of my last season in 2021 (when he played for Spanish side Deportivo Alaves) I lost the ambition I had in previous years. And I didn’t want that to happen. I had been a pro for 12 or 13 years, I could have gone on for another five or six making a lot of money, but I would have been kidding myself.” He added: “Our profession gives you very high salaries, the decision was very complicated to understand for those closest to me. They said to me; ‘Are you crazy?”
Jota turns his back on football for a life of horses and tattoos
Jota looked back on his time at Brentford: “It was the team that changed my life. I enjoyed it a lot, but I also suffered. I didn’t even know how to say ‘hello’ but it was amazing. On my mobile I follow how they are doing and how much they have grown in these years.” I will always be attached to them as the first club where my kids understood football.They went to games and I have many friends there like Sergi Canos who I love very much.”
Jota explained to Relevo that his daily life is now divided between his family, his horses and his technology companies which are ‘growing faster than we thought’ . Based in Bilbao he has developed an app called Otzi “that is going to revolutionise the world of tattooing at all levels. It will be a social network that will help you find a tattoo artist anywhere in the world. The value has already multiplied by five.”
Brentford historian and Bees United Contributing Editor Greville Waterman has written about Jota’s time at Brentford for the club website:
Jota arrived at newly promoted Brentford in August 2014 as a complete unknown and we all shrugged our shoulders before some rapid Wikipedia research highlighted his previous pedigree; his 11 goals had just inspired the previously unfancied Eibar to promotion to LaLiga for the first time in their history.
Brentford swooped for his signature and for a bargain €1.5m fee obtained a mesmerisingly talented inverted right winger and match winner who with the ball seemingly tied to his left foot led defenders a merry dance. They might have known that Jota would invariably cut inside them but knowing something and being able to do something about it are two entirely different things.
After an understandably slow start as he accustomed himself to the pace and intensity of the Championship and the agricultural attention of defenders unable to stop him by any fair means, Jota burst into life in November, scoring four times, including the glorious 91st-minute winner against rivals Fulham, cutting in from the right wing before picking his spot from the edge of the area that won him the title “Jota in the last minute” and the adoration of every Brentford fan.
https://twitter.com/BrentfordFC/status/1580150468449374208
If that was not enough, his incredible rasping long-range curling shot into the roof of the Cardiff City net earned the grudging applause of even the vociferous home supporters.
He spearheaded Brentford’s run to the Play-Offs and his 11 goals and twinkling feet earned him a place in FourFourTwo magazine’s top 40 EFL Players of the Season.
As good as the 2014/15 season was for Jota, the following season was a total flop as he damaged ankle ligaments on the opening day against Ipswich and after surgery missed four months of action before a surprise loan move back to Eibar given some personal issues.
Jota was like a blazing meteor. We thought we had seen the last of him but we never gave up hope and finally he returned to his spiritual home in January 2017 and received an uproarious and emotional welcome when coming on as a substitute in an FA Cup match against Eastleigh.
It was as if he had never been gone as he returned seemingly even better than ever and finished off the season as Brentford’s third leading scorer. Nobody who witnessed it will ever forget his match-winning two-goal performance against Queens Park Rangers when he left ex-Bee Jake Bidwell on his backside with his sorcery and trickery.
It came as a surprise when Jota left Griffin Park for Birmingham City for a reputed club-record fee in excess of £6m, but the old magic had gone. Perhaps he fed off the crowd as we fed off him – he was a genius who put a smile on the face of every Brentford supporter.
All match pictures,as ever, by Mark D.Fuller of officialbfcpics.co.uk