DHAKA: The fairy-tale rise of Brazil’s Chapecoense -- from small football club to national heroes -- has been cut tragically short, leaving the country mourning the loss of one of its most endearing sports teams.
The plane carrying the Brazilian team to the biggest game in its history was en route Monday night from Bolivia to Colombia when it crashed in Rionegro, near Medellin, killing 71 people.
Six people survived the crash, according to authorities. Chapecoense defender Alan Luciano Ruschel was among the survivors.
Chapecoense defender Alan Luciano Ruschel was among the survivors in the plane crash.
“The dream is over,” Plinio David de Nes Filho, chairman of the club's board, told Brazil’s TV Globo.
“Yesterday morning I was saying goodbye to them. They told me they were going in search of the dream, to make this dream a reality.”
Chapecoense was supposed to play the first leg of its Copa Sudamericana final Wednesday against Colombia's Atletico Nacional from Medellin before its plane went down.
“Chapecoense was one of the most lovely fairy tales,” Argentine sports journalist Martin Mazur told CNN.
“Unlike what happens with the big Brazilian clubs, Chapecoense’s humble story and its magnificent run in the Copa Sudamericana was naturally embraced by Brazilian football fans in general, becoming a fan’s favorite.
“It was South America’s Cinderella -- nobody could have predicted this macabre ending."
The Copa Sudamericana, the second-biggest intercontinental club competition in South America and the equivalent to Europe’s Europa League, had provided the backdrop to Chapecoense's remarkable story.
The club, from Chapeco in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, was formed in the 1970s and played in the country's fourth tier as recently as 2007.
A team with few big names, apart from Cleber Santana, who once played for Atletico Madrid and Mallorca in Spain, it went toe-to-toe with the big boys of Brazilian football.
Full of grit, spirit and determination, Chapecoense was a relatively unfashionable team hoping to tread a path laid out by English champions Leicester City.
BDST: 0902 HRS, NOV 30, 2016
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