Medellin, Colombia, turned from the site of the Copa Sudamericana final into an emotional tribute for Brazil’s Chapecoense soccer team Wednesday night.
Prior to the tribute’s start, fans of the local Atletico Nacional team dressed in white and broke out in song in support of the Brazilian squad, whose charter plane crashed outside the city Tuesday, killing almost everyone on board. Chapecoense’s Cinderella season was supposed to have culminated Wednesday night in the championship game.
A military band’s memorial tune as the stadium lights dimmed brought tears to the faces of Atletico Nacional’s normally stern-faced players and everyone else in the nearly full 40,000-seat stadium.
Black Hawk helicopters, which managed to pull six survivors from the wreckage during Tuesday’s rescue mission, performed a fly-over. Several first responders who were at the crash scene attended.
Seventy-one doves were released into the sky at midfield in honor of all the people who lost their lives. The crash killed 71 of the 77 people on board.
The stadium wasn’t big enough to fit all the soccer fans who wished to pay their respects as hordes of people gathered outside to watch the show, likely raising the number of attendees to over 100,000.
There was no soccer being played Wednesday night, but Brazil’s Fox Sports reporters still dedicated 90 minutes of silence to team Chapecoense.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Jose Serra fought back tears as he thanked fans for their show of solidarity. He told them: “It’s a light of hope when all of us are trying to understand what’s impossible to understand.”
With AP