Brazilian football team Chapecoense's ex-goalkeeper Jakson Follmann during a rehab session at a clinic in Sao Paulo on Saturday. Pic/AFP

Sao Paolo: When Brazilian goalkeeper Jakson Follmann took his first steps since surviving a plane crash that wiped out his football club, he called it a win — in his hardest ever season just starting.

Follmann was the reserve goalie of Chapecoense, a lowly club that had fought its way to the final of the regional Copa Sudamericana regional tournament. Then, on November 28, almost the whole team was wiped out when the plane flying its players to Medellin, Colombia, for the big game, crashed.