Chapeco (Brazil): Fans of Brazil’s Chapecoense football club whose team was wiped out in a Colombian air crash crammed into the home stadium for tearful prayers around the empty pitch.
The stadium here in, southern Brazil, was a solid wall of green as fans and mourners dressed in the team shirt stood shoulder to shoulder.
They gathered at exactly the hour their team, which just a few years ago was in Brazil’s gritty lower leagues, should have been kicking off in Medellin, Colombia against Atletico Nacional for the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana finals. But that did not happen because of the tragedy.
And instead of sitting excitedly in front of televisions to watch the action in Colombia, the people of Chapeco, a provincial city of about 200,000, trooped into their stadium to mourn and join in ecumenical prayers.
Players who had not been on the doomed flight, youth academy members, relatives of those killed and throngs upon throngs of ordinary fans joined together, all in the team colours.
“I think this transcends football. It has become something human. This is why I decided to come and pay my respects for the players who left Chapeco with a dream and who will never be forgotten,” said student Daniel Augusto Barrera, 21.
The first bodies are expected to be flown back from Colombia, where they are being identified, later this week.
AFP
