Since balls were invented and competitive spirits clashed, sports have forever been a part of our society. At times we look to sports as an outlet, a way to forget about any current situation, we use sports to bind together, to reach out to communities and to create opportunity for so many. As much as sports bring us salvation, joy, and pleasure, they’re always those heart wrenching stories in the sports world that brings us close to tears. We have seen great tragedy in sports, the most recent tragedy is a plane being crashed into the mountains of Medellin, Colombia due to an electrical error. On board that plane, was Brazilian club soccer team Chapecoense.

On November 29, 2016 seventy seven people were on board that unfortunate flight that flew into the mountains of Medellin, out of the seventy seven passengers on board, six fortunate flyers survived the crash. Out of the six people who survived 3 of them were players, two of them were crew members, and one was a journalist that was traveling with the team. The plane’s tail was completely smashed and luggage was all over the crash sight. At first when the rescue team approached the crash sight they thought there would be no survivors until, they heard confused voices shouting for help.

As a country Brazil lives around soccer, especially a soccer team like Chapecoense that made its way up through the ranks of Brazilian soccer playing in the fourth division years ago and working their way up to the first division of Brazilian soccer. What makes this team so much more special is that they didn’t only make their way up the ranks, they did it legally, ethically and without corruption like a lot of the other teams did. This led to people all over the country falling in love with this team. In the first time in the club’s history they made it into the Copa Sudamericana final. They were supposed to play a team in Medellin for the final match but their journey to the clubs first ever championship came to an end with a horrifying accident that left the club crippled.

It’s in times like these that people bind together and forget about the competition, victories, and the trophies. The club that Chapecoense was set to play asked the South American Football Confederation to award Chapecoense with the Copa Sudamericana trophy. All around Brazil there was a seven day mourning period that put a ban on all soccer games across the whole country from being played in honor of the team. The small city in Brazil that the club derives from, Chapeco is in deep mourning over the accident. The city of Chapeco houses 210,000 citizens, in a small Brazilian city like that everyone is close knitted and can either empathize or actually go through the experience of losing someone on that plane. Other clubs throughout Brazil are lending a courteous hand giving donations and loaning out their own players to play for the team who lost all but six of their first team players.

Videos have surfaced on the internet of the team celebrating their semi-final victory after coming out on top after penalty kicks. The video consisted of jubilant players eager for the future in front of them eager to play their championship match, their finals match. Sadly enough it was that day, that match that they were celebrating the victory of, that ended up being their final match.