Andrea Rinaldi, a 19-year-old youth prospect at Atalanta, has died after suffering a brain aneurysm on Friday while training at his home.
Rinaldi was taking part in a training regime remotely due to coronavirus restrictions when he collapsed.
He was a part of the Serie A club's youth system, a skilful central midfielder, who was on loan at Serie D side Legnano until the coronavirus break.
Il Presidente Antonio Percassi e tutta la famiglia #Atalanta, profondamente colpiti, partecipano commossi al dolore dei familiari e del @aclegnano per la scomparsa di Andrea #Rinaldi.
Ciao Andrea...https://t.co/BPqNgtp9HK— Atalanta B.C. (@Atalanta_BC) May 11, 2020
"Always available and positive, he knew how to make himself well-liked by everyone," said a statement from the Bergamo club.
His loan club Legnano called his death as "a sudden and shocking tragedy, impossible even to imagine".
"Andrea fought for three days after the illness that hit him. Unfortunately, there was nothing to do."
It is believed, according to reports in Italy, that he died in hospital in Varese on Monday morning.
Atalanta's statement added: "[j]ust as on the pitch you were always the last to surrender, this time too you fought with all your might not to fly away too soon.
"President Antonio Percassi and the whole Atalanta family, deeply moved, send their most heartfelt sympathy to Andrea Rinaldi's family members and AC Legnano for his passing."
Atalanta
Bergamo has been one of the epicentres of the worst excesses of Covid-19, as we learned from journalist Paddy Agnew.
Agnew told us of a local doctor in Bergamo that discussed the situation in the starkest possible terms.
"One of the senior doctors at the at the Giovanni XXIII Hospital in Bergamo is convinced that [the Atalanta-Valencia Champions League game] was a 'biological bomb'.
"What happened was that 40,000 Atalanta fans travelled down together, went and celebrated before and afterwards and returned home.
"What they hadn't realised was that many of them were infected, because at that point [19th February] there had not been one death in Italy. Three weeks later, 333 people died in a week in Bergamo.
"What the scientists believe is that an awful lot of those people were carriers, they went to that match and brought it home. A lot of people live with older relatives and they gave it to them; they subsequently have died."
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