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Why Did Atlético Nacional Give Chapecoense the 2016 Title?

Why did Atlético Nacional give Chapecoense the Copa Sudamericana? The Colombian club asked CONMEBOL to hand over the 2016 cup after the crash.

By Brett Hanson · Underdog Podcasts · August 28, 2026

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More than 40,000 people walked into the Estadio Atanasio Girardot in Medellín on November 30, 2016. They wore white. They carried candles and flowers, and someone let doves go over the grass. Nacional's players stood in a group near the centre circle, and there was nobody to play. No visiting team, no ball, no kickoff.

So why did Atlético Nacional give Chapecoense the Copa Sudamericana? The final could not be played after the plane crash that killed 71 people, and Nacional decided the cup should go to the Brazilian club anyway. It asked CONMEBOL to do exactly that. CONMEBOL agreed on December 5, 2016.

This is the story at the heart of the Why We Love This Club episode "Atlético Nacional — The Night a Final Became Something Bigger." Chris Horwedel calls it the cup the club chose not to claim.

What happened to Chapecoense before the final?

Chapecoense had no business being there. They had played fourth-tier football as recently as 2009. They reached Brazil's top flight in 2014 for the first time since the 1970s, then knocked out San Lorenzo, Independiente and Junior to make the Copa Sudamericana final.

The first leg was set for Medellín on November 30. On November 28, LaMia Flight 2933, carrying the squad, crashed on the way to the airport. Seventy-one people died, including 19 of the 22 Chapecoense players on board. Jakson Follmann, Alan Ruschel and Neto were the only players to survive. CONMEBOL suspended all activity, including the final, early on November 29.

Why did Atlético Nacional give Chapecoense the Copa Sudamericana?

Because the club did not wait to be asked. The episode stresses that this was not a gesture offered after officials had already settled on a plan. Nacional moved first.

The club's public statement went out on November 29. It said Nacional had first thought about the human side, then the competitive side. It ended: "For our part, and forever, Chapecoense: Champions of the 2016 Copa Sudamericana." CONMEBOL says the formal letter, addressed to its president, reached it on November 30.

Nobody pretended it was simple. CONMEBOL's president, Alejandro Domínguez, called the offer "admirable" and said the body would weigh it. He also noted that the tournament carried TV and sponsorship obligations, so the cancelled final could have an economic effect. That is the unromantic part. A cancelled final is a headache for a confederation, and Nacional's offer solved it.

Nobody has a signed letter proving what CONMEBOL would have done without that offer. My own guess is that it would have landed in the same place. Nacional got there first, and that's the part people remember.

CONMEBOL named Chapecoense champions on Monday, December 5. Club officials put the prize money at $2 million. The title also sent Chapecoense straight into the 2017 Copa Libertadores group stage.

What happened at the Atanasio Girardot on November 30?

The match could not be played, so the city went to the stadium anyway. Nacional had invited fans to come in white, with candles, at the time the first leg was due to start. Thousands more gathered outside, the episode says. Inside, the names of the dead were read out. There was silence, then singing, then applause.

Here is a small, exact oddity. The episode puts the ground's capacity at about 45,200. The AP, reporting that night, called it a 40,000-seat stadium. Either way the place was full of people who had come to mourn a team they had never been asked to love.

There was one more link. Chapecoense also play in green and white, so the colours filling the stands that night were the ones the visitors would have worn. The same night, a vigil was held at Chapecoense's own ground, the Arena Condá.

Why is Atlético Nacional called the Rey de Copas?

It sounds like marketing. The episode says it isn't. Nacional have won 18 Colombian league titles, 8 Copa Colombia titles and 4 Superligas. They also have two Copa Libertadores.

“A club known throughout Colombia as the King of Cups showed that sometimes the clearest expression of greatness is knowing when a trophy does not belong to you.”
— Chris Horwedel, on Why We Love This Club

The club began in 1947, and it began small. A group led by Luis Alberto Villegas Lopera got 500 shareholders to put in 100 pesos each, which made 50,000 pesos. The name was Club Atlético Municipal de Medellín, and the deed was signed on April 30, 1947. The league started in 1948. The club became Atlético Nacional in 1950.

The idea behind the early years was "Puros Criollos": build around Colombian players and show what Colombian football could do. The episode is careful to say that not every squad in history was all Colombian. It was a founding principle, not a rule that never bent.

It paid off in 1989. Francisco Maturana was coaching Nacional while he built the national team. He had René Higuita in goal, who treated the edge of his penalty area as a suggestion. In front of him stood Andrés Escobar. Nacional lost the first leg to Olimpia in Asunción 2-0. The return could not be played at the Atanasio Girardot, because it was too small for a final, so the second leg moved to El Campín in Bogotá. Nacional won 2-0, and Higuita saved four penalties in the shootout, which finished 5-4. Colombia had its first Libertadores.

The episode does not leave that story clean. Cartel money was all over the game. The domestic championship was cancelled in October 1989 after referee Álvaro Ortega was murdered. Escobar was murdered in Medellín after the 1994 World Cup. The hosts' point is that the trophy and the context have to be remembered together.

What is the Clásico Paisa?

It is Nacional against Independiente Medellín. Paisa is the word for the people and culture of Antioquia. The episode describes the fixture as an argument over who best represents the city's football identity.

The odd part is that the two teams share a home. The Atanasio Girardot opened in 1953 and sits inside a large public sports complex. On Nacional match days the concrete turns green and white, and flags cover whole sections. The episode says the mountains around the valley make the place feel like part of the shirt. Against Millonarios and América de Cali, Nacional fight over trophies and status. Against Independiente, the episode says, it is more intimate, because they share an address.

That helps explain November 30. A stadium that shifts identity every other weekend knows how to become something else for a night.

Did Nacional get anything for giving up the cup?

They got recognition. CONMEBOL gave them a Centennial Fair Play award, and it came with $1 million. At The Best FIFA Football Awards in Zurich on January 9, 2017, Nacional chairman Juan Carlos de la Cuesta collected the 2016 FIFA Fair Play Award from Carles Puyol.

De la Cuesta kept it plain. "We only did what we had to do," he said. The episode makes the same point: the awards were deserved, but the gesture didn't look designed to win them.

Nacional also lost something. A club that waited 27 years for a second Libertadores would have gone into a continental final as the team of the year. Nacional had won the Libertadores that season, plus the Superliga and the Copa Colombia.

What happened when the two clubs finally played in 2017?

The Recopa Sudamericana pits the Libertadores winner against the Sudamericana winner, so CONMEBOL's ruling set it up. The first leg was in Chapecó on April 4, 2017, and the second in Medellín on May 10.

Chapecoense won the first leg 2-1. Reinaldo scored a penalty, Macnelly Torres equalised, and Luiz Otávio got the winner. The result hardly mattered that night. The mayor of Chapecó, Luciano Buligon, stood in a Nacional shirt and said the clubs would be "brothers forever." After 71 minutes, the crowd lit up their phones and sang.

Nacional won the return 4-1, and the Recopa 5-3 on aggregate. Andrés Ibargüen and Dayro Moreno scored two each, and Túlio de Melo got a consolation goal for Chapecoense in the 82nd minute. The Colombian crowd applauded that goal warmly, as Chapecó's crowd had applauded Torres's the month before. Before the game, the survivor Neto met the Colombian policeman who had found him in the wreckage.

On paper the Recopa was one more cup for the Rey de Copas. Chris's view in the episode is that it hardly counted. The two clubs were on the same field, and that was enough.

You can hear the whole story, including the history, on Why We Love This Club. The title Nacional gave away is still the one thing in that trophy room it didn't win.