1 Players and trainers from Genoa's two major league soccer teams joined hundreds of fans, friends and relatives Thursday for the funeral of a young man knifed to death by a rival team's supporter.
2 Vincenzo Spagnolo, 25, was stabbed near the heart as he came to Genoa's stadium for the Genoa-AC Milan game on Sunday. Police on Monday arrested Simone Barbaglia, a 19-year-old Milan fan.
3 Cardinal Giovanni Canestri led the funeral in St. Theodore's church near the port. Outside hundreds of Genoa team supporters applauded and waved the red-and-blue team flag in a show of support for the victim's family and the soccer team.
4 'One can't die for a soccer game,' the cardinal said in his homily, urging reflection.
5 Spagnolo's death touched off a fan riot and prompted Italian sports authorities to cancel all soccer games this Sunday as well as other sports events.
6 'It seems sometimes that deviant idealogies and the primitive impulses enjoy precedence' the cardinal said, 'while the values of justice, generosity and solidarity get supplanted by the culture of egoism . hedonism, of bullying, of violence.'
7 Barbaglia claimed he was acting in self-defense when he pulled out a 10-centimeter (4 inch) knife that he said was only meant to intimidate members of a rowdy Genoa gang.
8 After his arrest Barbaglia wrote a letter, published in Italian newspapers Thursday, asking his victim to understand and forgive him.
9 'Together, maybe we shared a misunderstood passion for soccer. I didn't mean it. Forgive me,' he wrote.
10 A 17-year-old friend of Barbaglia lent Barbaglia the knife from a collection of knives he kept at home before Barbaglia set out by train to Genoa.

Spagnolo ' s death touched off a fan riot and prompted Italian sports authorities to cancel all soccer games this Sunday as well as other sports events .
a fan riot
What happened during the fan riot?