Mourners gather to honour Chapecoense victims at stadium memorial

Mourners and luminaries from around world football arrived in southern Brazil on Saturday to commemorate the 19 players of modest club Chapecoense who died earlier this week in a plane crash.

Twenty-thousand people gathered for a rainy two-hour ceremony that took place at the team's stadium, Arena Conda. Dressed in ponchos and holding umbrellas, grief-stricken supporters laid out banners and paid respects as soldiers carried the coffins of the fallen players onto the pitch.

In total, 71 of the 77 people on board the flight to Medellin died. Three of the survivors were players for Chapecoense, which had been travelling to Colombia Monday evening for the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana final.

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Recordings appear to show an electrical failure and a lack of fuel contributed to tragedy in the Colombian Andes, where the plane set off on a four-minute spiral.

Though questions over the definitive cause of the crash still remain, fans, friends, former players, and politicians all attended the memorial service.

The bodies of the dead were returned home the night before. Earlier Saturday, a procession from the local airport carried the coffins to the ground for one last goodbye.

Tens of thousands also lined the outer limits of the stadium, following in the footsteps of their Colombian brethren, who on Wednesday filled Medellin's Atanasio Girardot to remember, celebrate, and chant in the name of Chapecoense. The spiritual tribute happened on the very same night Chapecoense had been scheduled to take on Colombian giant Atletico Nacional.

The families of the victims circled the pitch in Chapeco, while the likes of Carles Puyol, Clarence Seedorf, FIFA president Gianni Infantino, and Brazil manager Tite all participated in the ceremony.

"This event, as you know, shook the whole country," said Brazilian president Michel Temer, according to the Guardian. "This rain must be St. Peter crying."

Chapecoense had played out the most unlikely of scripts before the disaster. Starting from the Brazilian fourth tier in 2009, the team from a city of 200,000 people slowly climbed the football ladder, and pushed eventual Serie A winner Palmeiras for the league title this year.

The crash robbed supporters of the opportunity to see out the fairy tale.

"This is a time for pain and suffering, not for talking," said Infantino. "No words can diminish the suffering."

Football clubs across Europe honoured the dead Saturday. Barcelona and Real Madrid observed a minute of silence before El Clasico, while Chelsea's Brazilian contingent of Willian and David Luiz both held aloft Chapecoense tributes during a 3-1 win over Manchester City.

Other teams sewed the badge of Chapecoense on their shirts.

(Courtesy: El Pais, Diario Le Prensa, Ruptly)