Lawrence and Federico: from football to that tragic relay of death

The boys of Futura calcio in Ciampino on Saturday will remember two of them who are no longer with us: Lawrence the goalkeeper and Federico the midfielder, who took their own lives

ROME – It’s that story of boys, of a football field outside the big city, of matches like bloody duels of times gone by and then the hugs, the hand on the shoulder of your friend who that day has something that isn’t it goes. Twenty years ago the boys of the Futura calcio di Ciampino were very young and on Saturday 1 June at 5pm, at the municipal football pitch, they will remember two of them who are no longer here: Lawrence the goalkeeper and Federico the midfielder, who took their own lives, in the same way, 7 years apart from each other.
Remembering them means going back to those years, to those souls of young people who around the ball had built a community, where everyone’s pain and ferocious fears were softened in the sporting liturgies of what had become a brotherhood of times gone by, with rites and promises.

THE MIDFIELDER – Federico took his own life on 22 April this year, in the Lombard hospital where he was hospitalized. In the following days on social media, many friends and university acquaintances published thoughts about his student years, and photos that immortalize him with his wavy hair, dark eyes and innate grace. He is remembered as a brilliant and talented engineer by his lifelong friend, Salvo, who told the Dire agency: “When I arrived in Ciampino at first I didn’t know anyone, he made me feel at home. He was always available: whether it was moving or taking the car to the mechanic, he was always there“. Laughter, games, but “for a few years he wasn’t what he used to be – he remembers – he had been hospitalized for depression. In my opinion it manifested itself when he got the job that everyone would envy and found himself in the North, far from his loved ones and friendships. Then with Covid – he continues – the problems amplified. He wanted to come and work down in Catania, where he spent his childhood, he was Sicilian like me, but there wasn’t the opportunity.” Together Salvo and Federico wore the Futura shirt in 2006: at the time “he was feisty – recalls the close friend – he was always very intelligent, spoke many languages, traveled the world”. Until two weeks before the tragic day Salvo spoke to Federico who told him on the phone: “‘I’m hospitalized for depression’, but he didn’t talk much about it”. The trip to visit him first in Turin and then in Milan was often postponed, but here and there the two friends always managed to meet up again, like that time in Paris. “I couldn’t have expected it – Salvo admits, almost speaking to himself – if I had sensed something I would have gone straight away. He was a brother to me,” he says and still can’t believe it happened.

THE GOALKEEPER – “Nothing suggested what he did. He was going through difficult personal and sentimental events: at home it was clear that he wasn’t very well, but no one expected what happened “. It’s the same shock that leaves everyone petrified when before Federico, on November 14, 2017, Lawrence, at the age of 41, takes his own life.
He tells it , at Dire, his brother Valerio. “That day, my brother was a traffic policeman, he worked the morning shift from 6 to 13. I wasn’t there, my parents were at home around 5pm. The dull noise of a coat hanger falling, with a makeshift belt attached, breaks the quiet of that afternoon, but Lawrence’s parents don’t know it yet: it seemed like other times when the house cats drop something and instead, as he says Valerio, behind that door there was their boy, now lifeless. “He had recently bought a mobile phone and a new car and the day before he had gone to an orthopedist to go back to playing football”, reconstructs the brother who doesn’t feel like talking about depression. “I don’t think there is such a direct link, but what drives people to take their own life is much darker”, he comments. Lawrence was certainly in a difficult moment, a sentimental discovery had disappointed him, disoriented. “He didn’t leave any notes and we still wonder if he really wanted to. We thought that perhaps he wanted to express his cry of pain, that it was a way of asking for help and getting out of his discomfort, perhaps he didn’t want to kill himself, by doing it in front of us he hoped that someone would save him. I still see it more as an accident than a voluntary suicide. Why not do it with the service pistol?”, asks Valerio. Lawrence was a boy with a complex personality: “Out of line, irreverent, histrionic, impetuous”. He doesn’t leave notes, but some time beforehand he gives his brother all the bank passwords and social media accesses: “Just in case – he tells him – something happens to me”.

FOOTBALL, A ‘LUMP IN THE THROAT’ – “Football was literally a reason for living for us – testifies Valerio, who today writes about sport – and our happiness depended on it , the common thread and the essence of well-being in our family: we are a generation of goalkeepers. Lawrence linked his happiness to that championship victory for Futura in the third category in 2001.
Then the following year the injury: he broke his knee, and his family carried him home in their arms. his friends, Fabio and Alessandro. Thus comes unhappiness, the many kilos he gained lead him to be obese. It dragged on for 3-4 years, but then he was finally back in shape, he was so proud of it.”

THE MEMORY – Tomorrow, 31 May, a ceremony will be held for Federico at the University of Tor Vergata, where he graduated in electronic engineering and on Saturday 1 June at the municipal hall of Ciampino it will be a memorial for both: with the teammates, the coach and the families. “We will make a commemorative shirt, a plaque for the families and the municipal authorities have been invited”, say the former teammates.
“Compared to other teams, Futura has always given enormous importance to the social aspect, also welcoming kids who are less fortunate or not exactly wealthy. We became a family,” they remember. Football as “a hymn to life and a lump in the throat”, wrote Pasolini. “That lump in my throat” are Lawrence and Federico, posing smiling for the shot at the end of the championship with the Futura shirt that their friends keep: it was a sunny day and life was all ahead of them.

(In the photos: Lawrence with the white t shirt and in the photo with his father and brother; Federico with the jeans shirt, with his friend Salvo in the black t shirt and a team photo of Futura calcio)