It felt so all-consuming on Saturday night. A last-minute winner, a six-goal thriller, a title race turned on its head. Then a young man died, and suddenly it did not seem to matter at all.

The passing of Davide Astori put all of Italian football into mourning. Genoa and Cagliari’s players were already on the pitch at Marassi, warming up for their lunchtime kickoff, when news filtered through. Several wept as they retreated to the changing rooms. An announcement that the match had been abandoned was met by the fans with applause.

Soon it was confirmed that all games would be postponed across Italy’s top two divisions. Giovanni Malagò, the Serie A commissioner, had taken phone calls from one team president after another, each relaying that their players were too distraught to press ahead.

Leader Davide Astori is fondly remembered as Serie A falls quiet | Paolo Bandini Read more

Tributes to Astori poured in from former team-mates and coaches, as well as many others whose paths he had crossed. To say the Fiorentina captain was well-liked would be some understatement. More than 2,000 fans gathered outside the Stadio Artemio Franchi to pay their respects, remembering him as “one of us”.

We do not yet know the cause of death. We do know that Astori went through a routine cardiogram check and blood tests together with his Fiorentina team-mates last Wednesday. Italian football holds itself to a high standard on such areas of player safety – introducing a raft of measures after Perugia’s Renato Curi died on the pitch in 1977, and refining them further since Pescara’s Piermario Morosini lost his life during a game in 2012.

All of the weekend’s remaining matches were postponed on that latter occasion, too, but the difference this time is that two high-profile ones had already taken place. To discuss Juventus’s win over Lazio, and Napoli’s subsequent loss to Roma in the hyperbolic terms used on Saturday night would be disrespectful, but nor does it feel right to pretend that they did not happen at all.

Astori was among those players who tweeted in support of the decision to postpone matches following the death of Morosini, yet he also understood that the show would go on soon enough. League organisers were set to gather on Monday to discuss the rescheduling of the lost games.

When Serie A does resume, the terms of the title race will have changed. That is because Juventus pulled a victory out of nowhere, beating Lazio 1-0 despite not mustering a single shot on target until Paulo Dybala took matters into his own hands in the 93rd minute – slipping between two defenders and holding off the desperate attentions of Marco Parolo before sending the ball into the roof of the net.

It was an extraordinary goal from an extraordinary player, making his first start since returning from the hamstring injury that he sustained at the start of the year. Dybala was the first to admit that his team could hardly have complained if the game had ended in a draw.

Indeed, that might have been what they came for. Already diminished by injuries to Gonzalo Higuaín, Federico Bernardeschi and Juan Cuadrado, Juventus also rested Alex Sandro, Douglas Costa and Giorgio Chiellini. After a draining midweek Coppa Italia win over Atalanta, Massimiliano Allegri plainly had one eye on Tuesday’s Champions League trip to Tottenham.

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The manager also noted afterwards that his first priority had been to deny Lazio space, after seeing his team undone twice already this season by the pace of these opponents on the counter-attack. He suggested he could have been content with a point.

Instead his team got a win that might well have carried a knock-on impact for their title rivals. It seems certain that Napoli’s players were aware of events at the Stadio Olimpico before they kicked off against Roma.

They still took the lead, through Lorenzo Insigne, but were immediately pegged back by Cengiz Under and went on to lose 4-2. Scintillating as ever in their attacking football, they were thwarted at times by Roma’s goalkeeper, Alisson, but then undone by their own defensive lapses, exploited ruthlessly by opponents who had not looked this sharp in weeks.

Although still a point behind Napoli, Juventus can go top with a positive result from their game in hand, against Atalanta. But if evidence were required that this title race is not run yet, then perhaps it could be found in the stands of the Stadio San Paolo. The home crowd stood to sing their team off the pitch at the end, choosing to recognise the previous 10-game winning run – a club record – rather than succumb to the gloom of one defeat.

In any case, this is not the day for an extended reflection on Scudetto permutations. Out of deference to Astori, perhaps the greatest lesson we should draw from Saturday night’s matches is just how thrilling this game, which he loved and lived for, can be at its very best.

“When we go back to training and playing football we will do it for him as well,” reflected the Udinese owner Giampaolo Pozzo on Sunday. “We will do it to keep his memory alive and to give greater value to this sport – which should know how to unite people, inspire and give strength.”