Brazilian town grieves loss of Cinderella soccer team Chapecoense
Thousands of grieving fans in green and white fill the Chapecoense stadium singing their team’s praises and chanting one by one the names of players who lost their lives in the tragedy
Thousands of grieving fans in green and white filled the Chapecoense stadium in remote southern Brazil on Tuesday, singing their team’s praises and chanting one by one the names of players who lost their lives in a plane crash a day earlier.
“We are champions!” they cried as club staff and relatives of the deceased joined hands in a circle at midfield, part of an impromptu ceremony that swung between mourning for the lives lost and pride in the unlikely feats of their fallen heroes.
The excitement turned to tragedy late on Monday when the team’s charter flight crashed near Medellin en route to the final against Colombia’s Atletico Nacional, the biggest game in Chapecoense’s history.
“We’ve passed from a dream into a nightmare,” said metalworker Fernando de Oliveira, who left work to bring his crying wife and two children to the stadium in a show of support.
The tragedy echoed throughout global soccer, but the scale of the loss was staggering in a city where it takes a 10th of the population to fill the small concrete stadium’s 20,000 seats.
“This is a little city from the interior, but it felt like we grew along with our team,” said Laura Zanotelli, 17, one of more than a hundred fans who gathered in the Chapacoense stands late into the afternoon, consoling each other and praying aloud.
Most of the team’s players were among the 71 people killed in the crash, Colombian authorities said, as well as local journalists and team officials.
“Our idea is to hold a collective wake here in our beloved stadium because everyone wants to give their support, to give an embrace,” said Ivan Tozzo, who became the club’s acting president when his predecessor died in the crash.
Club chairman Gelson Dalla Costa said the club’s doctors were travelling to Medellín on Tuesday to collect the bodies.
“As you know, in an accident of this scale you can get any kind of news in the first 48 hours,” he added, regarding the health of the survivors.
An improvised shrine outside the player’s entrance to the stadium filled up with jerseys, flowers and candles.
A poster celebrated, in a child’s handwriting, Chapacoense’s meteoric rise into top-flight Brazilian soccer: “They never tired of climbing and now they’re in heaven.”
