Schools shut, shops shuttered as Brazil town mourns its team

TIL Desk Sports/ Businesses closed and schools cancelled classes in Chapeco as the small town in southern Brazil plunged into mourning on Tuesday over the loss of its soccer team, Chapecoense, in a plane crash in Colombia.

Hundreds of fans decked out in the club’s green and white gathered at its stadium starting in the morning. Large groups remained quietly in the stands until late in day, staring past their banners at the empty green field as the sun beat down.

An improvised shrine outside the player’s entrance to the stadium filled up with jerseys, flowers and candles. A poster celebrated, in a child’s handwriting, the team’s meteoric ascent into top-flight Brazilian football. “They never tired of climbing and now they’re in heaven,” it read.

Chapecoense`s improbable rise to competing for the Sudamericana Cup title had been an inspiration to the agricultural town of some 200,000 people in the remote interior of Santa Catarina state.

The dream ended suddenly when the team`s plane crashed late on Monday outside the Colombian city of Medellin, where Chapecoense had been due to face local side Atletico Nacional in Wednesday`s Cup final.