'Davide Astori's death leaves Fiorentina and Italy in state of shock'

 

When Fiorentina went on the road, Davide Astori was always the first one down to breakfast at the team hotel.

So when the 31-year-old didn't show in the restaurant of the team hotel in Udine on Sunday morning, his team-mates knew something was wrong. To check everything was OK, the team's masseur went to Astori's room to see him. Tragically, the centre-back had died in the night from what his club have described as a "sudden illness".

The news has left his friends and family, club and country in a state of shock. As Italy went to the polls on election day, the former prime minister, ex-mayor of Florence, Partito Democratico leader and big Fiorentina fan Matteo Renzi tweeted: "It seems impossible to me. I cannot believe it."

Fiorentina's goalkeeper Marco Sportiello was apparently with Astori playing Playstation until 23:30 the night before.

Understandably, Sunday's game at the Dacia Arena against Udinese was called off. "In times like this everything else loses its importance," tweeted Udinese coach Massimo Oddo. "I am shocked by this terrible tragedy." 

 

As the story broke, Astori's former team Cagliari, where he spent six years, were about to kick off their match against Genoa. The players were told the news during the warm-up. Genoa goalkeeper Mattia Perin broke into tears, while former Cagliari manager Massimiliano Allegri, now with Juventus, said "coaching him was a privilege".

Astori played with Cagliari's current coach Diego Lopez and his assistant Alessandro Agostini, as well as veterans Andrea Cossu and Marco Sau. The whole team were frequent visitors to Astori's ice cream parlour Cremoso, which he opened with another former team-mate Lorenzo Ariaudo, now with Serie B leaders Frosinone.

Seven of Astori's 14 caps for Italy came while he was at Cagliari and the goal he scored against Uruguay in the 2013 Confederations Cup third-place play-off was the first by a player from the Sardinian club since the days of Gigi Riva in the 1970s. It was a source of great pride for the island and its football. As was Astori's decision to turn down a lucrative offer from Spartak Moscow in 2012 to stay with them for another couple of years. 

 A boy gives the captain's armband to Davide Astori before Fiorentina's Serie A game against Chievo on 25 February. It would be his final match.

You forget what a small world football at the highest level is. The moments shared on international duty or at training camps with players selected from across the country. You forget that footballers are human too; pictures of health, regularly checked with access to the best medical advice and treatment around but no less vulnerable than the rest of us.

The Astori tragedy has evoked memories in Italy of the deaths of Perugia's Renato Curi in 1977, Roma's Giuliano Taccola in 1969, and, in 2012, Livorno's Piermario Morosini. It also struck Roma's sporting director Monchi to the core. "I know the suffering, how it feels, the pain you're going through," he wrote, "because I unfortunately went through it with Antonio Puerta [at Sevilla]."

Processing it all is difficult. But a phrase from the former AC Milan and Italy manager Arrigo Sacchi springs to mind. "Football is the most important of the least important things in life." And those words feel particularly apt today.

Astori leaves a wife Francesca and a two-year-old daughter Vittoria. Bunches of flowers were left outside the Stadio Artemio Franchi. A banner was also tied to the ground's green gates. It simply read: "Ciao Capitano."