Chapecoense beat Nacional in emotional match

Brazilian club Chapecoense beat Colombia’s Atletico Nacional 2-1 on Tuesday in a highly emotional match that commemorated the victims of last year’s fatal air crash in South America.

Chapecoense struck first in Tuesday’s opening leg of the Recopa Sudamericana final when Reinaldo converted from the penalty spot in the 23rd minute.

Nacional equalized when Macnelly Torres scored just under the hour before Luiz Otavio scored the winner in the 73rd minute, although the final result seemed almost not to matter as both teams and their supporters paid a series of moving tributes to the scores of people that died in last year’s plane crash in Colombia.

The Recopa Sudamericana is one of South America’s most prestigious football titles, contested between the winners of the Copa Libertadores and the Copa Sudamericana champions, but this year’s final has taken on added poignancy.

Atletico Nacional won the 2016 Copa Libertadores and were supposed to play Chapecoense for the Copa Sudamericana title, but the match never took place after the charter plane flying the Chapecoense team to Medellin in Colombia crashed, killing 71 out of the 77 people on board, including 19 players.

As a mark of respect, Nacional asked that Chapecoense be awarded the championship, setting up an emotional rematch in the twolegged Recopa Sudamericana.

Chapeco, a city of 200,000 residents in Southern Brazil close to the Argentine border, prepared a series of tributes both inside and outside the 22,000 seater Arena Conda, where the funerals of 50 people took place just four months ago.

Inside the packed stadium, the mayors of Chapeco and Medellin embraced each other in what organizers called “a show of gratitude” to the Colombian visitors. (AP)