When Florence gathered in the morning to prepare for the game to challenge Udinese that night, the team captain Astori failed to appear for a long time. When people opened the hotel room, they found that the 31-year-old central defender had stopped breathing. Just two weeks ago, Astori's second child was just born.
This is a bad news coming tonight in Beijing time. All the remaining matches in this round of Serie A have been postponed and will be played again on a date. When the news of his death came, Astori's old club, , Cagliari , and Genoa's match was only a few minutes away from the kick-off, and he also called for a stop.
Astori is a star who came out of AC Milan youth training camp. He made his Serie A debut in Cagliari. Six years later, he loaned to Roma and Florence. The summer of the previous year, he officially became a member of Purple Lily and became the captain step by step. He also made 14 appearances for Italian team and scored one goal.
Hidden heart disease, the sharp sword hanging above the player's head
There is currently no official statement about the cause of Astori's death, but based on various information, the cause of hidden heart disease is the most likely.
The sudden death of a player due to heart problems is not an isolated case.
2003 Federation Cup, Cameroonian star Vivia Fo fell to the ground without other players around during the match against Colombia, and died on the way to the hospital.
In early 2004, Hungarian player Feher, who played for Portuguese Super League, died of heart attack in the center of the league. Benfica retired his No. 29 jersey permanently.
In 2007, in the first round of Sevilla against Getafe, the 22-year-old Sevilla player Puerta was hospitalized due to a sudden heart attack and was declared dead after three days of rescue. In 2009, Espanyol captain Halke died of a heart attack while talking on the phone with his pregnant girlfriend.
After winning the 2008 European Cup and 2010 World Cup, Ramos wore a T-shirt with Puerta's avatar and stood in the center of the winning photo to commemorate this old friend; in 2010 World Cup finals, Iniesta defeated Dutch team , he took off his clothes and exposed the text on the T-shirt, also to commemorate his teammate Harke in the Spanish Youth Team.
Chinese football also has examples of sudden death from heart problems. The most recent case happened last year, when a 20-year-old young player from Shanghai Shenfan, the Chinese New Year 2 team, also passed away in his sleep. In 2015, the foreign aid Gokic of the China League One Qingdao Huanghai Manatee Serbian team went into shock after training and died of rescue. He had just gotten married shortly after he was married.
FIFA tested the "sudden death chip", but it was hard to prevent it
Heart problems often occur without warning because of their concealment, suddenness and extremely fast processes, and it is difficult to rescue them. The long duration of football matches, fewer chances of rest in the middle, and higher intensity also increases the chance of inducing heart disease. FIFA held a meeting a few years ago to discuss whether it is necessary to install "sudden death chips" in players' jerseys to monitor the physical condition of players during the game at any time, but it has not yet been put on the agenda.
The rescue time for sudden cardiac death is only a few minutes. On professional courts, the proportion of on-site medical personnel learning cardioresuscitation is very high, and a considerable number are also equipped with cardiac defibrillators. However, even so, tragedies are often inevitable, let alone situations like Astori who happen in sleep.
