The moment lingered. All around the piazza, Verdi players moped while white T-shirts mingled, the shrieking and shouting interrupted only when an official called out the names of players who had been selected for drug testing. (Antidoping is taken seriously, several players said, though no one could forget the unlucky player, years ago, who received a phone call after submitting his sample informing him that he — or, more likely, the woman who had surreptitiously provided it — was pregnant.)

Finally, even the doping was over and everyone slid out the side of the arena into the streets. Allegri, the medic, and his crew looked happy enough — this was the first time in recent memory that a stretcher was not required during a game — but the Bianchi, despite several of their members limping noticeably, were jubilant. Lorenzo Taddeucci, who scored one of the caccias, bounced back and forth from curb to curb, clapping teammates on the shoulders and holding his fingers in the air.

“I don’t know how to describe this,” he said. “It just feels right.”

Taddeucci shrugged. The players did not care that they had made no money, did not care that they had won no giant trophy. They cared only that they would remember this Wednesday. They cared only that they had survived.

Eventually, the mass of white moved down Via de’ Benci, away from the basilica and off into the night. As the players crossed the Ponte alle Grazie, headed toward Santo Spirito and the neighborhood where only white flags flap in the breeze, they threw their arms around one another.

“Bianchi! Bianchi!” they shouted. Then they stood on the bridge and sang.