Almost three years after the Chapecoense plane crash, families are still looking for answers, and for redress

In London's financial district, eight other Brazilians are staging a protest. They are wrapped up warm against the wind, coats zipped to the very top and gloved hands firmly jammed into pockets. Some hunker down on a bench. Others stand on the pavement, holding the edges of a banner they brought over from their homeland.

"Fighting for justice, we are stronger," it reads.

A few passers-by to ask what is going on. Those who do hear the latest chapters in a story that once held the world's attention but has since slipped off the radar.

Three of the protesters are lawyers. One is an activist. Four are widows of footballers who died when the aeroplane carrying the Chapecoense squad to the final of the Copa Sudamericana crashed in Colombia on 28 November 2016.

The ninth protester is Neto. He was on that plane.

The reason for their presence in the UK? Almost three years after the crash, the Chapecoense families are still looking for answers, and for redress.

Read the rest of this piece in The Athletic. 

Chapecoense's miracle man: Eight months after that tragic air crash, Alan Ruschel is a footballer again

"It's a dream come true. Just being able to do what I love again... that's what's important. I want to show people how to celebrate life – to show the joy of living, working, just being alive. I always dedicate myself to my work and today I was rewarded."

Those were the words of Alan Ruschel on an emotional night at the Camp Nou. The Chapecoense left-back had just played for the first time since the air disaster that claimed the lives of most of his team-mates and friends 252 days earlier.

It has been a long road back for the 27-year-old, who was the first to be rescued on that dismal night on Colombia last November. Through it all, he has been a picture of grace and determination, so it was good to see him get his reward on Monday.

For Unibet, I take a look at his heartening journey back to first-team action.

Time waits for no manager: Rogério Ceni & Vagner Mancini the latest victims of Brazil's rampant short-termism

As anyone with even a passing interest in Brazilian football will know, this is not the home of job security.

Managers are rarely two or three more bad results away from the axe. Talk of 'projects' and 'progress' is usually hopeful at best. No one really thinks this merry-go-round is a good thing, yet it is the norm.

My bit on the sackings of Rogério Ceni and Vagner Mancini is in the September issue of @WSC_magazine. Out now, all good newsagents etc pic.twitter.com/QaJz4XuBGJ

— Jack Lang (@jacklang) August 3, 2017

Yet while those numbers have largely inured people to the precariousness of it all, there is still the odd case that manages to raise eyebrows – as proved by a pair of controversial sackings in Série A at the beginning of July.

You can read my take on the demise of Rogério Ceni at São Paulo and Vagner Mancini at Chapecoense in the latest issue of When Saturday Comes, which is available in newsagents and online.