Edoardo Bove heart stops during Fiorentina-Inter: he is in hospital, serious damage ruled out

It was the 10th minute of the first half when Edoardo Bove and Denzel Dumfries entered the tackle inside the Viola area. They tug at each other, the meshes tense, they fall to the ground. The referee whistles for a foul against the Inter player. Bove gets up with his shirt torn, touching his side, perhaps a blow suffered or a fall to the ground. A Fiorentina attendant retrieves a new shirt, throws it to Edoardo who approaches the sidelines bare-chested. He puts on his shirt, the torn one flies to the fans. There is already something wrong, the boy reports dizziness. The game resumes. 17′: Lautaro scores, but the linesman warns that Dumfries has controlled the ball over the touchline. An argument is ignited. Did the flag go up or not? A few meters away, in front of the Inter bench, the drama takes place. Edoardo bends on his knees, it seems that he is tying his shoes. In reality, he only rests his hands on the ground, looking for stability because standing up he must have felt dizzy. He lingers for a few seconds, then tries to get up, he is next to Dumfries. He moves away one step, two, three… They are slow, heavy steps, then he collapses at the feet of Calhanoglu. It’s not a dry thud like Eriksen’s at Euro ’21, it’s as if Edoardo had prepared for the fall, he managed to partially turn to the side. He lost consciousness. And here begins the great fear.

Inzaghi sprints from the bench, slides on the lawn, falls. The doctors of the two teams rushed to the scene. The players make a circle, they invoke the health workers. Fear exasperates reactions, speeds up time, makes everything seem too slow. The ambulance approaches the pitch, but, by protocol, it cannot enter, Gosens throws handcuffs on the windows, Ranieri tugs on a health worker, someone cries, everyone screams, Dimarco is among the most impressed. The stretcher-bearers run across the field, load Edoardo, take him to the ambulance that does not leave immediately. The defibrillator restarts the heart that had stopped: cardiac arrest. The 5 minutes that passed from the arrival to the departure of the ambulance for the Careggi hospital seemed like five centuries. Comuzzo, the youngest, wanders with his head in his hands. Dodò is sitting on the ground with his head bowed. Bastoni comforts his friend Colpani, they grew up together at Atalanta. The referee Daniele Doveri pale and distraught by the incident.