Nine hundred and forty four days separated Francesco Acerbi’s first Serie A goal from his second. It might as well have been a lifetime. The centre-back was just another fresh-faced kid when he deflected Cyril Théreau’s header into the Siena net while playing for Chievo back in 2012. By the time he prodded home a Domenico Berardi cross for Sassuolo this weekend, he was a two-time cancer survivor.
It was the summer of 2013 when Acerbi learned that his body had betrayed him. He was feeling fit as a fiddle as he began a routine preseason medical at Sassuolo, whom he had joined just a few weeks earlier. But the club’s doctor, Paolo Minafra, had some concerns about Acerbi’s test results and asked him to undergo a scan. A tumour was discovered on the player’s left testicle. He was rushed to San Raffaele hospital in Milan for immediate surgery to remove it.
The operation was deemed a success. By September Acerbi had recovered sufficiently to make his Sassuolo debut against Hellas Verona. He quickly carved out a place in the first team.
Sassuolo felt lucky to have him. At 25 years old, Acerbi was still considered an intriguing prospect in Italy, one who had made a relatively late emergence from the lower leagues but might yet blossom into one of the nation’s better defenders. Prior to joining Sassuolo he had enjoyed two stints at Chievo either side of a six-month spell with Milan.
Although he never quite made the grade with the Rossoneri, there was a sense that circumstances had worked against him. The Milan team he joined was still reeling from the departures of several key players in the summer of 2012 – including Alessandro Nesta and Thiago Silva. Expecting him to step right in and fill those boots was always too much to ask.
At Sassuolo the bar was set lower. Despite the newly-promoted club’s struggles in adjusting to the top flight, Acerbi seemed to be doing well.
Right up until a routine doping test at the start of December.
After a game against Cagliari, Acerbi tested positive for elevated levels of human chorionic gondatropin (hCG) – a hormone which can boost testosterone. Suspended by the Italian Football Federation, the defender was distraught at his treatment but had far greater matters to worry about.
Tumours are known to produce hCG. His cancer had returned.
Acerbi returned to hospital, even as he launched a successful appeal against his ban. This time the treatment would have to be much more aggressive. “I had to go through chemotherapy. Four rounds,” he told Sportweek magazine this August. “Nausea, tiredeness, insomnia, loss of appetite … at least it never made me vomit. Possibly because I took the wrong pills. I had a thousand different medicines, I didn’t understand a thing any more and I threw back the laxative instead of the one to stop vomit. I was always in the bathroom but at least I never puked!”
It is in his nature to make light of the situation, but there were times during his treatment when the jokes did not come quite so easily. Acerbi spent two months in hospital, waking up some mornings to find that whole tufts of his hair had fallen out overnight. He told Sportweek that he did not recognise his own face in the mirror.
Even when he was able to get back home, he lacked the energy to go outside. He spent whole days in front of the TV watching Masterchef, hoping in vain that the sight of all that food would make him feel like eating again.
But the experience also gave him time to reflect on what mattered. “I used to be a fickle kid who would go mad if I couldn’t find the mobile phone I wanted when I went to the shops,” he said. “Now I concentrate on the important stuff.”
Stuff like getting back out on to a football pitch. “While I was alone in my bed I thought a lot about the meaning of life,” said Acerbi in a separate interview this summer. “I developed a furious desire to come back and play again.”
Acerbi missed the remainder of the 2013-14 campaign, but returned in time for this one. After a couple of games on the bench, he made his first start during a 0-0 draw against Sampdoria in September. Drafted back in gradually, he missed games against Fiorentina and Lazio but started against Napoli and Juventus.
Then came this weekend’s derby against Parma. Some overeager newspapers billed it as a relegation six-pointer. Sassuolo had four draws and three losses to show for their seven games so far. Parma had one victory and six defeats.
It was Sassuolo who rose to the challenge, strolling to a comfortable 3-1 win. Sergio Floccari and Saphir Taider grabbed a goal each, but it was Acerbi’s strike that stole the show. There were tears in the eyes of more than one of the team-mates who mobbed him as he charged towards the bench in celebration.
The Neroverdi will draw much encouragement from the result, arriving as it did just a week after they had held Juventus to a 1-1 draw. The greatest happiness, though, was for a young man who is back doing the thing that he loves.
As a centre-back, it might easily be hundreds more days before Acerbi strikes again. Hopefully none of those will be as hard as the ones he has been through over the last year.
Talking points and results
• The other side of that Sassuolo victory, of course, was yet another loss for Parma, who remain rooted to the bottom of the table. The absences of Gabriel Paletta and Jonathan Biabiany are clearly weighing on this team, as is that of Marco Parolo – sold to Lazio in the summer. There were reports over the weekend that the club might even be getting ready to part ways with manager Roberto Donadoni, with youth team coach (and former star striker) Hernán Crespo waiting to take his place.
• Juventus restored their three-point advantage at the top of the table, beating Palermo after Roma had been held to a goalless draw by Sampdoria the day before. The latter was a significant result for the Blucerchiati, unbeaten in Serie A but having previously enjoyed a relatively soft stretch of fixtures to start the season. Italy’s Sky Sport posed the hard questions after the game, asking Sinisa Mihajlovic who had been playing Bob Marley in the changing room before kickoff. “Football is fun, not suffering,” he replied.
• Gonzalo Higuaín finally awoke from his footballing slumber, scoring his first Serie A goal of the season, and then following it up quickly with his second and his third in a 6-2 clobbering of Verona. Rafael Benítez’s troubles in Naples might dry up rather quickly if the striker can get back to making more regular contributions to the cause.
• No such obvious solutions present themselves for Inter, whose unconvincing 1-0 win away to Cesena was not enough to alleviate the pressure on manager Walter Mazzarri. The resignations of Massimo Moratti and his son Angelomario from their positions as honorary president and (actual) vice-president of the club this week – seemingly in protest against Erick Thohir’s public criticisms of the way the club was being run before he arrived – have only added to the air of uncertainty at the club.
• Antonio Di Natale’s 198th Serie A goal was another peach, whipped into the top corner of Sportiello’s goal as Udinese beat Atalanta 2-0.
• Brit-watch: nothing to report this weekend, as Ashley Cole and Micah Richards were each left as unused substitutes. Richards did play the full 90 minutes of Fiorentina’s Europa League win over PAOK Thessaloniki on Thursday, however. “I’m feeling good,” he said afterwards. “My muscle problem is healed.”
Results: Cesena 0-1 Inter, Chievo 1-2 Genoa, Empoli 0-4 Cagliari, Juventus 2-0 Palermo, Lazio 2-1 Torino, Milan 1-1 Fiorentina, Napoli 6-2 Verona, Parma 1-3 Sassuolo, Sampdoria 0-0 Roma, Udinese 2-0 Atalanta.
