‘A devastating day that will last forever’
Full stadium remembers Brazilian soccer team
On a rainy Saturday that only accentuated the grief, 20,000 people filled a tiny stadium under umbrellas and plastic ponchos to say goodbye to members of the Chapecoense soccer club who died in a plane crash.
The accident Monday in the Colombian Andes claimed most of the team’s players and staff as it headed to the finals of one of Latin America’s most important club tournaments. Seventy-one of the 77 people on board died, including 19 team members.
Rain-soaked mourners jammed the stadium with four or five times that many outside to pay homage to a modest club that nearly reached the pinnacle of Latin American soccer. In total, about half the population of the southern Brazilian city of 210,000 gathered.
Thousands also lined the roads as the coffins were driven in a procession from the airport to the stadium memorial.
“I’ve been here since early morning,” said 19-year-old Chaiane Lorenzetti, who said she worked at a supermarket frequented by club players and officials. “I’ll never see some of my clients again. It’s a devastating day that will last forever.”
Soldiers wearing berets carried the coffins into the stadium on their shoulders, sloshing through standing water and mud on a field filled with funeral wreaths, club and national flags, and other tributes.
A tent, with the coffins placed beneath, stretched across the width of the pitch. On top of the white tent, a sentence from the club’s anthem was written for all to read.
“In happiness and in the most difficult hours., You are always a winner.”
Family members and friends wept under the tents. Many hunched over the coffins with photos of the deceased placed on top or alongside.
Brazilian President Michel Temer, who had not planned to visit the stadium for fear of being jeered, showed up after greeting the arrival of the bodies at the airport. He was treated respectfully and was joined by Gianni Infantino, the head of FIFA — the world governing body of soccer.
“This is a time for pain and suffering, not for talking,” Infantino said. “No words can diminish the suffering.”
The loudest applause was probably for Brazil’s new national team coach Adenor Leonardo Bacchi — known universally as Tite (pronounced Chi-Chi). He has led Brazil to six straight victories since taking over, quickly becoming a national hero.
Ivan Tozzo, the acting president of the club, told fans the club would continue on, and reminded them that “it was here on this field where this club fought the good fight.”
“This team taught us that everything is possible,” he added, recalling the team rose in less than a decade from the depths of Brazilian club soccer to the final of the No. 2 tournament on the soccer-crazed continent.
In closing he added, “We are all Chapecoense.”