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Brazil’s football team nearly wiped out in tragic plane crash
Star on ill-fated plane posts a premonition message
The players posed for the last photo before they jumped onto the ill-fated plane
Almost an entire football team from Brazil’s top flight club Chapecoense has vanished in a tragic accident in Colombia that killed 19 players, coaches and other club officials.
The plane was flying from Bolivia to Colombia to play in the first leg of its historic Copa Sudamericana club tournament, the second biggest club championship equivalent to the Europa league in Europe, when it crashed in Colombia due to bad weather.
Supporters of the club mourning their heroes
It was a tragic end to Chapecoense’s fairytale dream of winning the Copa Sudamericana club competition, which would have been the first and biggest trophy in the club’s history had they lived to play and win it. Chapecoense’s recent rise has been compared to Eglish F.A side Leicester City’s incredible rise last season.
The tragic accident claimed the lives of 75 people out of a total of 81 that were on board. Colombian officials also said the plane was carrying 21 journalists when it crashed. Only three of the 22-man Chapecoense’s squad survived the crash. The three along with two others who were left behind, are the only players that remained of the great club.
Cleber Santana posted this pic on his Instagram and wrote: ‘In how many lives I live, in all I will love you’
In what many faithful could call premonition, former Atletico Madrid and Real Mallorca star who until his death was playing with Chapecoense posted a photo of him inside the ill-fated plane with a caption saying; ‘In how many lives I live, in all I will love you’
Outpouring of grief
The tragedy has attracted considerable emotional reaction from around the world including European clubs such as Barcelona and Real Madrid whose players observed minutes of silence during their training sessions.
Berca’s Brazilian star Neymar da Silva went led the tributes when he wrote on social media that: “Cannot believe this tragedy, impossible to believe happened, impossible to believe that the plane crashed, impossible to believe that athletes, humans were on that plane, impossible to believe that these people left their families .. is IMPOSSIBLE TO BELIEVE !!! Today the world mourns, but the sky is happy to receive Champions. My feelings all family and friends.”
Several other sports personalities have reacted with grief about the horror accident.
Worst accident in history?
Although not the first, the accident is the worst plane crash in history to hit the sporting world if you consider the number sports personalities involved.
In 1993, 18 members of the Zambia national team aka Chipolopolo died in a plane crash en route to a World Cup qualifier in Senegal. The accident killed all 30 people on board.
But before that in 1958, eight Manchester United players had lost their lives when their flight crashed on the third attempt to take off after refuelling in Munich, West Germany, as the club returned from knocking Red Star Belgrade out of the European Cup.
And in 1949, 18 Torino players were killed in a crash near Turin, Italy, as the club returned from a game in Lisbon, Portugal. The accident is remembered every year by the club’s fans at the scene of the crash — the Superga hillside by the city’s iconic basilica.
Brazil’s president announced three days of national mourning to remember the dead.
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