BRAZIL
Chapecoense will return to play an official game on 29 January
CONMEBOL announced on Tuesday the date that the club desimated by the plane crash tragedy in Colombia will return to action. They will face Internacional de Lages.
CONMEBOL have announced that Chapecoense will play their first official game, following the tragic plane crash, on 29 January 2017. They will return to face Internacional de Lages at the Arena Condá, in the Campeonato Catarinense. And as already confirmed by AS, there was no truth in the rumour that the club would be punished for not playing their last game.
The man to lead the rebuilding
Chapecoense, who lost most of their players and backroom staff when 71 passengers and crew died in an air crash in Colombia last week, have appointed the experienced Vagner Mancini as coach.
"Vagner Mancini will take charge of the team with the responsibility for maintaining the work that was being done," the Brazilian top-flight club said on their Twitter account on Friday. He replaces Caio Junior who was one of those killed when a plane crashed into a mountainside outside Medellin, leaving the football world in mourning. Chapecoense were travelling to play Atletico Nacional in the final of the Copa Sudamericana.
Six people survived the crash, including three members of the club, en route to the biggest game in the team's history. Mancini, 50, has coached more than a dozen clubs including big names such as Santos, Gremio, Botafogo and Vasco da Gama and must now put together an entirely new squad.