Daily Times

SAO PAULO: Brazilian football team Chapecoense on Friday held its first training session since its squad was wiped out in a plane crash in November. The club from southern Brazil on January 21 plays its first game since the tragedy which forced it to rebuild its squad from nearly nothing. Leaning on crutches, one of the injured survivors of the crash, defender Helio Neto, 31, greeted new members of the squad in their dressing room. The players were presented to the media before starting their first training session at the team’s Arena Conda stadium in Chapeco. “Today we set out on a new path,” the club’s new president Plinio David De Nes Filho said. “May it be filled with hope, optimism, determination, effort and much solidarity.”