Edoardo Bove saunters over with a sparkling smile and a heart that once stopped beating.
‘I started a new life,’ he says of the cardiac arrest that nearly killed him in December 2024. ‘I don’t regret anything because it made me stronger. I’ve never been scared about dying.’
Daily Mail Sport is at Watford’s training ground, where Bove is reviving a career that has already taken in two European finals and more than 70 outings in Serie A. Jose Mourinho hailed him as a ‘sick dog’ at his boyhood club Roma, somewhat clumsy praise for his aggressive playing style. He was one of Italy’s most promising young midfielders.
Then, 16 months ago, his world imploded. Bove collapsed while playing for Fiorentina against Inter Milan and started writhing on the turf. His fellow players held their heads, covered their mouths, and cried. Within 13 minutes, he was in hospital. The football world held its breath.
‘The last thing I remember is when I went down. I woke up in hospital without knowing what happened. I thought I’d been in a car accident,’ Bove, 23, recalls.
‘Before it happened, I felt like a superhero. They told me I wouldn’t play football again. Sometimes I was thinking, “what am I going to do?”. There were very difficult days where everything was going so bad.
Edoardo Bove’s world changed in a flash when he suffered a heart attack on the pitch
His football career in Italy ended after he had an ICD fitted, so he moved to second-tier Watford
The 23-year-old’s interest in fashion, modelling, and photography grew last year
‘It was hard but it became part of the journey. I’m happy with how it went and I learned more in this year than from anything I’d experienced before.’
Bove is thoughtful and compelling company, often taking a moment to think through his answers. After 12 days in hospital and more than a year out of the game before joining Watford in January, he is used to wrestling with his thoughts.
His life has changed indelibly and he lives with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) fitted into his upper chest. It checks his heart rhythm and will deliver him electric pulses if it detects an abnormality. Serie A bans such devices, so he had to leave his homeland.
‘Here, I show you.’ Bove lifts up his black compression shirt, reveals a scar several centimetres long on his side, and smiles tenderly. ‘I got a new friend in my body.
‘The first month, you struggle sleeping on the side. It changes your physique. When you see yourself changed in the mirror it can be painful – but for me it wasn’t. I’ve never been disappointed.
‘I’m so lucky it happened at a perfect age. I was 22. I was mature enough to understand the real meaning, but I also had the energy and power of a young guy.’
Mourinho was one of the first people to get in touch. ‘He cares about every player he has trained,’ says Bove. ‘Some of them more than others!’
‘He wrote to me first but I couldn’t answer anyone, so he got the number of my parents. I have an unbelievable relationship with him. Mourinho is a very important person for me and my family.’
Bove, or ‘Edo’ to his team-mates, has the quality to reach the Premier League. Top-flight clubs were interested but he chose Watford partly because of their attentive medical plan and his rapport with sporting director Gianluca Nani, whom he met by chance on his way to a match in Italy.
Sources describe him as a tenacious trainer, talented linguist (he speaks Italian, English and German, his mother’s native tongue), and handy darts player.
Jose Mourinho was a big supporter of Bove at Roma and texted him after his health episode
Fellow Italian Riccardo Calafiori has helped Bove settle since moving to England
He made an emotional return to action against Preston on Valentine’s Day, 440 days after his cardiac arrest, and has made eight appearances for the Hornets. On Good Friday he made his first start away at QPR, though he was carded and many fans feel he still has to get up to speed physically. Every mountain has its ups and downs.
Against Wrexham last month, he capped off a 3-1 win, scoring in stoppage time before jumping into the arms of the home fans. ‘It was like closing a big circle,’ he says.
His year out allowed him to pursue other passions. He studies economics, does nature photography, and is a fashion nut. Vanity Fair made him a cover star while Dolce & Gabbana welcomed him as a special guest. Is he the best-dressed chap in the beautiful game? ‘No!’ he protests, playfully. ‘[But] I always try to dress in a good way.
Arsenal star and fellow fashionista Riccardo Calafiori is a good friend who has helped him settle into London life. ‘I’m so happy he’s here,’ says Bove. ‘I appreciate how his style is on him, but his clothes on me? I don’t like!’
He is also friends with tennis world No 13 Flavio Cobolli, with whom he played in Roma’s academy. Their paths diverged as they focused on their respective stronger sports but Bove retains a habit of analysing his performances closely, a practice tennis ingrained in him.
Bove is still feeling his way through this new existence but takes inspiration from Christian Eriksen, who has offered support after his own cardiac arrest in 2021.
Above all, ‘Edo’ is his own man. His ordeal has not dented his iron will, nor has it cooled his sanguine outlook on life.
‘Sometimes when I think about the past, it makes me emotional. But at the same time it makes me proud. It was a long period but I turned a tough moment into an opportunity,’ he reflects.
‘I have a different perspective. If you are not open-minded, you lose something about life.’ Looking out over the gleaming pastures of Hertfordshire, he repeats: ‘I’m happy.’
