The atmosphere at Lazio's home ground was far from happy on Saturday afternoon. The home side was losing against Torino, an opponent that had allowed 10 goals while scoring only two in their most recent five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were concluding their most recent demonstration in a long-running conflict with president Claudio Lotito.
This Year's Efforts Falling Apart?
Had their campaign coming unstitched, or had there never been any cohesion holding it together in the first place? They reappointed Maurizio Sarri to lead the team in the summer transfer window, but then he admitted that the board had failed to disclose a ban on new signings they were set to be hit with for accounting issues. Reports that he might quit were not true, but he did say that Lotito had "misled" him.
The Biancocelesti appeared equally disorganized on the pitch as they were off it, defeating Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but being defeated in the rest of their opening fixtures, featuring the derby della Capitale. At any given moment, it's been difficult to determine if they're getting better or collapsing.
The Youngster's Unforeseen Return
One individual kept smiling through it. Matteo Cancellieri had not been expected to be at Lazio this season. He was on the previous campaign with Parma on loan and, at the start of the off-season, Lazio were advocating for him to stay there temporarily. The transfer ban forced a rethink. Lazio could not afford to thin their squad lacking backup options.
He joined originally under Sarri's first spell, then a 20-year-old alumnus of Verona's academy. He made 20 Serie A appearances with the club in the 2022-23 season, the vast majority of those coming off the bench. The club's longtime sporting director, Igli Tare, whose tenure ended at the end of that season, later stated Sarri of "promising everyone Cancellieri would be a star only to bench him consistently."
Discovering His True Position
Maybe Sarri was persistently working to work out the nature of his skill set. Billed as a flank player upon signing, Cancellieri instead found himself most of that campaign as an ineffective backup to Ciro Immobile in the striker role. During 63 outings on loan at Empoli and Parma over the last two seasons, he scored seven times. Shoehorn
