Fans say goodbye to tragic soccer stars
CHAPECO, Brazil — 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 in the Colombian Andes on Monday 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 players on the team.
Rain-soaked mourners jammed the modest 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. About half the population of the southern Brazilian city of 210,000 gathered.
Thousands lined the roads as the coffins were driven 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. “It’s a devastating day that will last forever.”
Soldiers 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 underneath, stretched across the width of the soccer field. 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,” it said. “You are always a winner.”
Family members and friends wept under the tents. Brazilian President Michel Temer and Gianni Infantino, the head of FIFA, attended. “No words can diminish the suffering,” Infantino said.