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

Along these lines, when the 31-year-old didn’t appear in the restaurant of the team hotel in Udine on Sunday morning, his fellow teammates knew something wasn’t right. To check everything was OK, the team’s masseur went to Astori’s space to see him. Sadly, the centreback had died in the night from what his club have depicted as a “sudden illness”.

The news has left his loved ones, club and nation in total disbelief. As Italy went to the polls on election day, the former P.M., ex-mayor of Florence, Partito Democratico leader and huge Fiorentina fan Matteo Renzi tweeted: “It seems impossible to me. I cannot believe it.”

Fiorentina’s goalkeeper Marco Sportiello was with Astori playing Playstation until 11:30 P.M. the night prior to Astori’s death.

Naturally, Sunday’s game at the Dacia Arena against Udinese was canceled. “In times like this everything else loses its importance,” tweeted Udinese coach Massimo Oddo. “I am shocked by this terrible tragedy.”