Less than two months after the tragic plane crash which wiped out the majority of its team, Brazilian soccer club Chapecoense returned to the pitch Thursday to play its first competitive match since the disaster.
Amid enormous grief the club has been faced with the prospect of rebuilding a team ready for the start of the new season following the November crash.
The club’s new manager Vagner Mancini, who was appointed just two weeks after the crash, added 25 new players — half of them loan deals — to the three remaining from last season and nine promoted from the youth setup in creating a squad.
This hastily-assembled team took to the pitch in a noisy Arena Conda to face Joinville in the Primeira Liga’s first round of fixtures.
“You always feel the emotion when you get onto the field,” captain Tulio de Melo told Don Riddell after the match.
“But after we start the game I was concentrated on the game to do my best and to try and score goals for our team.”
The game finished 0-0, as young goalkeeper Elias made a quite remarkable double save to earn Chapecoense an historic first point.
It’s likely to be a grueling season for Chapecoense, with the club set to compete in seven competitions across the course of the new campaign.
It will include an emotional Recopa Sudamericana meeting against Atletico Nacional, the team Chapecoense was en route to play in the Copa Sudamericana final before its plane plunged into the Colombian mountainside in a tragedy that killed 71 people.