Saints Marching
Fansided

Chapecoense: A Tribute to The Fallen, and The Community

By Aaron Preston

A boy sits alone on the stands during a tribute to the players of Brazilian team Chapecoense Real who were killed in a plane accident in the Colombian mountains, at the club's Arena Conda stadium in Chapeco, in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, on November 29, 2016.Players of the Chapecoense were among 81 people on board the doomed flight that crashed into mountains in northwestern Colombia, in which officials said just six people were thought to have survived, including three of the players. Chapecoense had risen from obscurity to make it to the Copa Sudamericana finals scheduled for Wednesday against Atletico Nacional of Colombia. / AFP / Nelson ALMEIDA (Photo credit should read NELSON ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images)
A boy sits alone on the stands during a tribute to the players of Brazilian team Chapecoense Real who were killed in a plane accident in the Colombian mountains, at the club's Arena Conda stadium in Chapeco, in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, on November 29, 2016.Players of the Chapecoense were among 81 people on board the doomed flight that crashed into mountains in northwestern Colombia, in which officials said just six people were thought to have survived, including three of the players. Chapecoense had risen from obscurity to make it to the Copa Sudamericana finals scheduled for Wednesday against Atletico Nacional of Colombia. / AFP / Nelson ALMEIDA (Photo credit should read NELSON ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

Outpourings of support in the wake of the Chapecoense tragedy have shown that the world of football is more than a sport—it’s a family.

As I sit down to write this, it has been about 18 hours since a tragedy cut down 76 players and staff of Brazilian side Chapecoense, along with members of the media sent to cover that club’s rise to the greatest heights of South American football.

In that time, it seems, a lifetime of knowledge and tragedy has been absorbed by osmosis as fans of the club mourn in person and throughout social media spaces. A young, small club, founded in 1973 from a merger of two earlier predecessors. A city unfashionable, off the beaten track of Sao Paolo and Rio and everywhere futbolistas and tourists know well, but a city proud of its hometown heroes. A lifetime spent in the lower divisions, dreams of glory distant, until recently.

In its seven year run from doldrums to highest heights, the Copa Sudamericana, the club bears some resemblance to our own Southampton. In many respects, with its unbelievable run through the likes of continental titans Independiente and San Lorenzo en route to the final, it bears uncanny resemblances to Leicester City.

The players of “Chape” were for the most part unheralded and unknown outside their home country. Keeper Danilo gained his fifteen minutes of international fame via Reddit, as a clip of his incredible last-minute save in the second leg of the semifinal circulated. Another more humorous clip showed a Chape player, identified as striker Tiaguinho, dragging a hapless Independiente defender along as he drives toward the goal. But for these flashing moments of brilliance and hilarity, the world would have known little of Chape. Tomorrow’s match was a chance to change all of that, to write the name Chapecoense into the annals of world football as champions.

That this chance should be denied, that such young men of their 20s and 30s should be cut down, is a tragedy and a cosmic injustice. They leave behind friends and loved ones; wives, mothers, sons, brothers. Tiaguinho, the dogged striker who would drag a defender along the floor rather than surrender the attack, was to have become a father. It is individual stories like these that make such a tragedy all the more poignant.

But it is in the darkest moments that human kindness shines the brightest. Around social media, tributes flowed far and wide. On Reddit, where subscribers to the soccer sub-forum announce their allegiance with customized “flairs,” hundreds and perhaps thousands switched to Chapecoense for a day, a week, perhaps longer.

Kits for the club, which was never a financial heavyweight, have sold out as fans memorialize and aid the club however they can. The titans of the Brazilian league have offered free loans to Chape for next season to rebuild their squad as best they can, and have asked the CBF to exempt the stricken side from relegation for 3 years. Even Benfica, half a world away in Portugal, has offered to put its players at Chape’s disposal.

The match which was to be played tomorrow has been postponed and is unlikely to ever be played. Atletico Nacional of Colombia, who were to be Chape’s opponents, today held a ceremony of remembrance in their ground and asked that CONMEBOL posthumously award the Copa Sudamericana and its prize monies to Chapecoense.

Those who do not follow sports sometimes question why those of us that do put so much of our time and energy into what amounts to a game. The answer to this question is varied and complex. To me, as a soccer fan, it is a sense of connectedness to the world, 90 minutes where we sit down on a weekend or weekday and have no greater cares in the world than to watch two groups of men kick a ball around. In forming this bond we become a family, one clan of many united by what a Brazilian, Pele, called “the beautiful game.”

The beauty of soccer lies in more than what happens on its pitches around the world. It is more than fluid passes, incisive attacks, dramatic saves and precision tackles. It is the forging of a universal human experience, from Bogota to Boston to Bangkok, the backdrop for a coming together as one human race. We mourn together, remember together, and will help each other overcome together.

Because the show, the beautiful game, must go on.

#ForçaChape