The feeling at the Stadio Olimpico was far from happy on Saturday afternoon. Lazio were trailing against Torino, a side that had allowed ten goals while scoring only two in their last five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were wrapping up their latest protest in an ongoing feud with club owner Claudio Lotito.
A Season Coming Unstitched?
Was Lazio's season falling apart, or was there ever any cohesion holding it together from the beginning? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri to lead the team during the off-season, only for him admitted that the management had omitted to inform him about the transfer ban they were set to be hit with for financial irregularities. Speculation that he might quit were not true, but he acknowledged that Lotito had "misled" him.
Lazio appeared equally disorganized during matches as off the field, beating Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but falling short in the rest of their opening fixtures, which included the capital clash. Throughout this period, it's been difficult to ascertain if they're getting better or self-destructing.
Matteo's Surprising Presence
One individual continued to smile through it. Matteo Cancellieri was not even supposed to be at Lazio this year. He completed the last one on loan at Parma and, at the start of the off-season, his parent club were pushing for him to stay there for another season. The registration embargo necessitated a reconsideration. The club couldn't risk to weaken their team without replacements.
Cancellieri arrived in the first place under Sarri's first spell, then a 20-year-old graduate of Verona's academy. He accumulated 20 league appearances with the club in that campaign, all but one of those coming off the bench. Their former sporting director, Igli Tare, whose tenure ended at the end of that season, would later accuse Sarri of "informing all Cancellieri was destined for stardom only to bench him consistently."
Discovering His Best Role
It's possible the coach was persistently working to determine the specific characteristics of the player's talent. Originally described as a flank player on arrival, Cancellieri yet was deployed for most of that campaign as a struggling deputy to Ciro Immobile in the striker role. Across 63 games during spells with Empoli and Parma in the past two years, he netted seven goals. Shoehorn
