By Stefan Dagher

The Chapecoense Football Club was one of the greatest storylines in Brazilian sport this year. Just seven years ago the small Santa Catarina, based team played in Brazil’s lowest division. In 2016, it became a solid member of the national Serie A Brazilian League and on track to becoming the country’s most successful team at international level.

However, last week the world heard the tragic news that a plane carrying the Chapecoense team crashed, killing 71 people and now the very existence of Chapecoense is in jeopardy.

Embed from Getty Images

The accident has brought back heartbreaking memories of previous air crashes such as the Manchester United crash in Munich in the late 1950s, a tragedy which rocked English football. Eight Manchester United players were among 23 people killed, when their British European Airways flight 609 crashed on its third attempt to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport, West Germany.

Embed from Getty Images

The flight was taking the Manchester United team back home from a European Cup match in Belgrade, Serbia. A host of United greats, including Duncan Edwards, Tommy Taylor and Roger Byrne, died following the disaster. The 21 survivors included Sir Bobby Charlton, who was 20 at the time and went on to become one of England’s finest players, winning the 1966 World Cup.

After their tragic crash it was rebuilding time for the Manchester club. The FA exempted the team from relegation for a year in order for them to recruit and rebuild. The signings after the crash of Albert Quixall, Maurice Setters, Denis Law, Pat Crerand, and Noel Cantwell helped the club to get back on its feet. Although they were short-term investments, the arrival of fresh blood failed to give the club an immediate leg-up in the league. Munich survivors Harry Gregg, Bill Foulkes and Bobby Charlton were nevertheless all with the club for many years afterwards.

However, the crash did not destroy the club’s ambitions as only ten years later, after several years of rebuilding the team and making it strong again, Manchester United managed to lift their first ever European Cup in 1968 against Benfica, one of the greatest stories in sport at the time.

Embed from Getty Images

“But could the same thing happen for Chapecoense?” Brazil’s top football clubs have promised a full year of free player loans to rebuild the Chapecoense team. They have also called for a three-year grace period without relegation. This means that if Chapecoense finishes in the last four of the 20 teams in the national league, the Brazilian FA would instead relegate the fifth-to-last team to Serie B.

Also in solidarity, the Colombian Copa Sudamericana finalists Atlético Nacional requested that CONMEBOL give the Copa Sudamerica title to Chapecoense. The title comes with a $2 million award and a spot at Copa Libertadores (the equivalent of the Champions League in Europe) South America’s most prestigious and profitable competition.

Like the Manchester United team of the 1950s, Chapecoense were growing as a team and had become one of the teams to beat in the competition. Next season the Brazilian club will be playing in the Copa Libertadores. It would be unlikely for them to win it, the season following the crash but having recruited wisely over the past few years it would be unreasonable to rules them out for the following years.

Even if it doesn’t happen right away, could Chapeconense, like United, win a major title only a few years after the tragedy? What a remarkable story it would be it they did.