Death just isn't supposed to happen to athletic young men in the prime of their lives. That's why all of Italy stood still in shock when Fiorentina captain, and Italian international defender, Davide Astori died suddenly at the age of 31 in March of this year. It later transpired that the player suffered from a previously undiagnosed heart condition, and that he'd suffered a heart attack.
To say the world of Italian football was shocked would be an understatement. Every league game scheduled for that weekend was canceled, and both Fiorentina and Astori's former club Cagliari permanently retired his preferred number 13 jersey in his honor. Fiorentina's training ground is now named "Centro Sportivo Davide Astori" in the name of their fallen captain. Astori, who represented his country fourteen times at the highest level, left behind a two-year-old daughter.