Tears and tributes as Serie A returns with Davide Astori in its thoughts

Florence downed tools to remember Davide Astori on Thursday. The player’s funeral had been held in the morning at the Basilica Santa Croce, with a crowd of 10,000 in attendance, but even those who could not be there in person joined in with a minute-long pause for reflection at 1pm. Across the city, businesses shut off the lights and ceased trading.

One day later, Italian football sought to pay tribute by carrying on. The country’s top divisions had abandoned all fixtures after Astori’s sudden passing the previous weekend but the time had come to continue. Not everyone found it easy. Before Roma’s game against Torino on Friday night, Eusebio Di Francesco noted that Daniele De Rossi was struggling to come to terms with the loss of his friend.

The captain of the Giallorossi had tears in his eyes during the pre-game pause for silence, a scene that would be repeated many times over with different players as the weekend progressed. De Rossi scarcely celebrated after scoring the second of his team’s goals in a 3-0 win, even though this was his first goal for Roma in almost 10 months.

It was Kostas Manolas who had grabbed the opener, which he marked by kneeling and raising both hands to the sky. Further tributes to Astori followed at stadiums up and down the country. Every Serie A player wore a patch with the words “Ciao Davide” on their sleeve and many club captains sported custom-made armbands dedicated to their lost peer.

The most vivid scenes played out at the Stadio Artemio Franchi. Fiorentina have retired Astori’s No 13 shirt but their entire first-team squad and coaching staff wore replicas of it as they emerged for the warm-up before Sunday’s lunchtime kick-off at home to Benevento. A super-sized depiction was laid across the centre circle.

It was a gesture during the game, though, that will linger longest in the memory. With 13 minutes on the clock, the ball was kicked into touch and both teams joined together with fans and officials for 60 seconds of continuous applause. Supporters in the Curva Fiesole raised placards to create a purple mosaic, with “Davide 13” spelled out in white and red.

“There are men who never die,” read a banner across the bottom of the stand. “There are stories that will be passed on forever. Travel well, captain.”

To play a competitive game of football against such a backdrop cannot have been easy, yet both sides rose to the challenge. Fittingly, it was the man who had replaced Astori in the starting XI, Victor Hugo, who broke the deadlock midway through the first half. By even neater coincidence, he was wearing the No 31 shirt, a mirror image of Astori’s 13.

Hugo ran to the touchline and saluted a T-shirt – held by a member of team staff – with Astori’s picture on it. He then took the garment and raised it up for the crowd to see.

Benevento could not afford to surrender this game out of deference to the occasion. Bottom of the table, and with prospects of top-flight survival evaporating rapidly, they continued to battle. As late as the 89th minute, Massimo Coda hit the post with a header that would have pulled his team level.

Instead, Fiorentina held on for a 1-0 win. The three points took them to ninth, but first and foremost this felt like another small but important step in a team and a city’s shared healing process. At full-time, many of the Viola’s starting XI crumpled to the floor.

A tragedy can put many things into perspective. Juventus are despised in Florence, yet when their players arrived at Astori’s funeral on Thursday – having flown directly from the game against Tottenham in London the night before – they were greeted in the Piazza Santa Croce with applause. Football, notwithstanding the famous Bill Shankly quip, truly is not more important than life and death.

Nor, though, does that make it meaningless. If it were, then we would never have known Astori to begin with. Away from Florence, those pre-game tributes gave way to familiar waves of joy and despair. Verona won the Derby della Scala, lowly Crotone thumped Sampdoria 4-1 and Ciro Immobile scored a goal-of-the-season contender at Cagliari: a volleyed backheel lob from the edge of the box to steal a draw for Lazio in the 95th minute.

The front pages of the sporting press on Monday morning would be devoted to other stories still. Milan had rebounded from that Europa League hiding by Arsenal with a last-gasp victory away to Genoa, moving to within six points of the Champions League places. Their goal was scored by André Silva: his first in Serie A since joining the club for €38m from Porto in the summer.

And then there was Juventus, taking sole possession of first place for the first time all season. They moved ahead of Napoli with a 2-0 win over Udinese but it was the Partenopei’s subsequent 0-0 draw away to Inter that allowed them to stay there through the end of Sunday night.

If Juventus play their cards right they can be seven points clear before Napoli play again. Juventus have a game in hand to catch up against Atalanta on Wednesday, then visit Spal on Saturday. Napoli do not play again until Sunday evening, at home to Genoa.

Massimiliano Allegri played down the idea that this had been a decisive weekend, insisting that the season still had a long way to run. To see Paulo Dybala whipping an unstoppable free-kick into the top corner, however, only days after his decisive goal against Spurs, was to be reminded that Juventus have run a significant part of this race with their most gifted attacking talent either out of form or injured.

Napoli, in contrast, were stifled by Inter, unable to find a final ball. “We are not the richest team in Italy, nor the strongest,” the manager, Maurizio Sarri, observed at full-time. “We are not the ones obliged to win here. But we must do our best right to the end. If the other team gets 105 points that will be to their credit. Let’s be clear though, this group still believes in itself.”

The race at the top continues, then, as do those for European places and to avoid relegation. The gap from Cagliari in 14th to Verona in 19th now stands at only four points. None of it feels quite so urgent as it did before last Sunday. And yet, it still does matter, all the same.

Roma 3-0 Torino, Verona 1-0 Chievo, Fiorentina 1-0 Benevento, Bologna 0-1 Atalanta, Cagliari 2-2 Lazio, Crotone 4-1 Sampdoria, Juventus 2-0 Udinese, Sassuolo 1-1 Spal, Genoa 0-1 Milan, Inter 0-0 Napoli