The eternal flight of Green Cross: the tragedies that marked Chilean football

Due to the overbooking of tickets as a result of Easter, the Green Cross delegation was divided in two for its return to Santiago after its 1-0 defeat against the Osorno team, for the Chile Cup. Nobody imagined that the worst would happen on April 3, 1961: the members who traveled on the DC-3 No. 210, from LAN, would never reach their destination. The plane crashed on Cerro Lástima, in Linares. 24 people died, including seven Pije players, their coach and the physical therapist. One of the greatest tragedies in Chilean football, which turns 60 today.

However, it has not been the only one. Unfortunately our football has seen the same or worse situations, inside and outside the sports venues. Here is a review of those stories, some a little forgotten by time, that still excite the fans who felt them up close.

At his young age, David Arellano had already left a style and footprints in Chilean football. In 1927, the founder of Colo Colo participated in a tour in Spain with the albos. In one of those encounters, the legendary Cacique player received a strong blow to the stomach, which triggered peritonitis that ended his life on May 3 of that year. His remains were repatriated in 1929 and, since that tragedy, Colo Colo’s shirt has been in eternal mourning in his memory.

The enthusiasm for having the possibility of seeing Chile for the first time lifting the title of the South American National Team Championship, now known as the Copa América, generated tragic consequences. The organizers did not imagine the amount of public that would come to the National Stadium that March 30, 1955. La Roja was playing against Argentina in the last match of the tournament and thousands of people crowded against the bars of the Ñuñoa enclosure trying to enter. The disorder and despair generated a human avalanche that left a terrible toll of seven dead, eight seriously injured and close to 500 bruises. Although it is difficult to believe, the match was played the same and the national team lost by the minimum count against the albiceleste.

It was the 43rd minute of the first half. Palestino measured forces against Magellan in Santa Laura on the afternoon of August 30, 1955. Suddenly, the referee of the match, the Argentine Raúl Iglesias, fell to the grass to the amazement of players and stadium attendees. Despite attempts to revive him, the judge died of a heart attack in the middle of the game.

Although it is not a tragedy in which a Chilean team was directly affected, it did generate an admired gesture throughout the world that involved a national team. On December 8, 1987, the Fokker F-27 charter plane, which was transferring the Alianza Lima club delegation, had an accident in which 43 people died: 16 players, their coach, more barristas and members of the crew. The misfortune had a worldwide impact. Faced with this situation, Colo Colo decided to loan the players José Letelier, now coach of the women’s team, René Pinto, Parko Quiroz and Francisco Huerta. In addition, the Cacique went to Lima and played a friendly with the Peruvian team. The action was appreciated by the fans of the Intimo painting, who made a mural near the Alejandro Villanueva stadium that says “a single heart”, along with the insignia of both institutions.

July 20, 1995 was forever marked in Chilean soccer and, especially, in the history of the Catholic University. That day, Raimundo Tupper, a 26-year-old soccer player from UC and a victim of endogenous depression, decided to kill himself by jumping from a ninth floor of the Centro Colón hotel in San José, Costa Rica. More than 25 years after that event, Mumo today is an impossible legend for the Crusaders to forget. “I remember him very fondly and no one is going to get out of my head those moments that we live on and off the pitch. How far had it gone? I do not know. For me it is impossible to imagine”, Declares an emotional Alberto Acosta in an interview with Sporting in 2020.

O’Higgins de Rancagua fans were traveling back to their city after a good 0-2 win against Huachipato, the current champion, in Talcahuano. What should be a journey with the sweet taste of triumph, at 1.30 in the morning turned into a nightmare from which some, sadly, could not wake up. That February 9, 2013, one of the buses carrying 37 celestial fans fell 150 meters down a ravine on Cuesta Caracoles, in Tomé. The result was terrible, with 16 dead and another 21 people injured.