“The Tragic Story of Andrea Fortunato: The Promising Juventus Player Who Lost his Battle Against Leukemia at 24”

On a day of celebration, like today, Andrea Fortunato, one of the best prospects of his generation, passed away. It was April 25, 1995, twenty-eight years ago, when the Juventus player lost his battle against leukemia. He died in Perugia at the age of 24. His family is originally from Salerno, but he soon moved to Como, where he became a regular between Serie B and C1. Genoa buys him and first sends him to train definitively at Pisa, still in B, then launches him on the stage of A, immediately doing very well with 33 appearances (out of 34) and three goals.

On the Juventus bench is Giovanni Trapattoni, forward Ravanelli and Vialli. So in 1993-94 he was bought by the bianconeri for the left-handed band as heir to Antonio Cabrini and starting off very well, so much so that he earned his first call-ups for the national team in September 1993. Unfortunately they will also be the last. Performance deteriorates and in May 1994 the club’s doctors decide it is time to carry out more in-depth tests, which give a very bad result: he suffers from acute lymphoid leukemia, which can only be treated with a bone marrow transplant. There’s another problem: there isn’t a donor, so the father and sister make themselves available for a cell transplant.

The situation seems to be improving, before unfortunately getting worse. In October he began rehabilitation and trained with Perugia, in February 1995 Fortunato also went away to Genoa. A bad pneumonia, two months later, lowered the immune system. On April 25th he leaves this world, while his funeral in Salerno is attended by thousands of people.