Italian football came together on Saturday to pay tribute to the Livorno player Piermario Morosini, who died after suffering a cardiac arrest during his team's Serie B match at Pescara. He was 25.
Morosini,
who was on loan from Udinese, collapsed in the 31st minute of the
match. He was treated on the pitch before being taken to Pescara's Santo
Spirito hospital. The match was abandoned, with many players leaving
the field in tears.
Soon afterwards, Serie B announced that the
player had died before he reached hospital. The chief cardiologist of
the Pescara hospital, who was in the stands watching and rushed down to
help the initial treatment, said Morosini had never regained
consciousness.
"He never had a single heartbeat again," Leonardo
Paloscia told reporters. "From when I arrived he never gave a sign of
revival, not in respiration or heartbeat. When I arrived everything was
still."
The Italian Football Association immediately announced the
postponement of all the weekend's remaining matches, "in memory of
Piermario".
Italian press reported that a parked car belonging to
traffic police had initially blocked the ambulance's path into the
stadium and its window had to be broken so the car could be moved. The
club's general manager, Danilo Iannascoli, said: "He collapsed, he tried
to get back up but then collapsed again … I don't know if the ambulance
was late, but I do know that its entrance was blocked."
Many of
those who paid tribute to Morosini as news spread made particular
reference to the series of personal tragedies he had to overcome to
pursue his dream of a football career.
His former coach in
Atalanta's youth team, Mino Favini, told reporters: "He was a golden
boy. He grew up at Atalanta with me and I saw him playing as a very
young kid. He was a fantastic lad who always rushed to help everyone. He
lived for his family. That was Piermario.
"Yet he was such an
unlucky man. He lost both parents when he was young, his siblings have
physical handicaps. His little brother recently killed himself by
jumping out of a window. He had the most unfortunate life. But he was
very talented. He had a strong career, was respected by all. Everywhere
he went, people spoke highly of him. He had a heart of gold."
Morosini,
born in Bergamo, moved to Udinese in 2005 from Atalanta's youth academy
before embarking on a series of loan spells elsewhere – first at
Bologna, then Reggina, Padova, Vicenza and finally Livorno. He made 18
appearances for Italy's under-21s.
Asked in 2005 about how the
loss of his parents had affected his determination to progress in
football, Morosini said: "They are things which mark you and change you.
But at the same time they instil in your body so much anger, that it
drives you to give everything to realise what was also my parents'
dream."
The Udinese owner, Giampaolo Pozzo, said Morosini's death
was his "saddest day in football", and welcomed the decision to postpone
all the weekend's games.
"I cannot remember a tragedy like this
in my 26 years in the game," said Pozzo. "I remember him well as he was a
very serious lad, very professional. He often played away on loan, but
he was always back here punctually for pre‑season.
"This news has
hit us hard. Credit to the FIGC [the Italian FA] for quickly calling off
all games, because there was no way we could have played today after
this."
Roberto Baronio, a former team-mate at Udinese, told Italy's Sky Sport 24 that he could not comprehend the loss.
"There
are no words to describe this chilling feeling. It is absurd: he was
just 25 years old. I got to know him when I was at Udinese, and he was
just coming through the youth ranks. He made his debut that year against
AC Milan: you could see he was a hot prospect."
Morosini's death
comes just four weeks after Bolton Wanderers' Fabrice Muamba suffered a
cardiac arrest playing in an FA Cup tie at Tottenham Hotspur. Muamba,
like Morosini, was treated on the pitch by medical staff including a
cardiologist who happened to be watching, before being taken to
hospital, where Bolton say he continues to make "strong and steady
improvements" in his recovery.
Many others were not so fortunate.
Marc-Vivien Foé died in Lyon during Cameroon's Confederations Cup match
against Colombia in 2003; Sevilla's Antonio Puerta died in 2007, three
days after collapsing during a league match against Getafe; the
Motherwell midfielder Phil O'Donnell died after a cardiac arrest during a
match in December 2007; and Espanyol's Dani Jarque died in 2009.
Baronio,
though, said he believes that the number of medical tests footballers
undergo, recently increased in Italy, meant the tragedy could not have
been avoided. "I think it is just destiny," he said. "It surprises me
that it happens to professional footballers, but it is not down to the
lack of checks: we have them every two months. This could simply happen
to anybody, just as it happened to Muamba. We cannot understand why. It
is destiny which has taken Piermario away."
Morosini's former
Vicenza teammate Raffaele Schiavi, now a defender at Padova, posted a
picture of Morosini's smiling face on Twitter. "Despite the many family
problems he had, Moro always had a smile on his face and never let those
issues come through. It's how I want to remember him."
Source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk
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