Tragedy has an amazing way of bringing football fans together and on Wednesday night Cardiff City fans proved that once again by travelling to Nantes to pay tribute to Emiliano Sala.
It's just 11 days ago that Cardiff City signed Emiliano Sala from Nantes before tragedy befell the Argentinian striker. Just two days later the plane carrying him, and being flown by pilot David Ibbotson, disappeared into the English channel.
Since then football has been in mourning and at Premier League grounds players have been paying tribute to the former Nantes striker with minutes silence and applause.
At the Emirates on Tuesday Cardiff were the visitors and both captains laid bouquets of flowers before kick off, a minute silence was held and fans waved Argentina flags and shirts.
Advert
The Gunners also added Sala's name to the list of Cardiff players and replaced his shirt number with a flower.
On Wednesday night Nantes hosted their first game since the horrible news came through last week as they played St Etienne in Ligue 1.
Nantes played their own tribute to their former striker and in the crowd were also some Cardiff fans who brought a banner they'd initially unfurled at Arsenal the night before:
Cardiff fans have travelled to Nantes for their game tonight to pay respects to Emiliano Sala. 👏 The banner reads: “We never saw you play and never saw you score, Emiliano our beautiful bluebird we will love you forever more.”
The game at the Stade de la Beaujoire was halted on nine minutes to pay respect to Sala, relating to his former shirt number, and the crowd erupted into applause at the break.
Advert
The players paid tribute to their former teammate by wearing t-shirts saying 'We love you Emi' in the warm up.
FC Nantes' players warming up tonight with "We love you Emi" t-shirts on in homage for Emiliano Sala. | 📸 @FCNantes
On Wednesday afternoon it was revealed that on Monday morning part of a seat cushion washed up on shore of a French beach and it's believed to be from the light aircraft that was carrying Sala.
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Football News, Football fans, Emiliano Sala, Ligue 1, Neil Warnock, French football, Cardiff City