The feeling at their home stadium was anything but joyful this past Saturday. Lazio were trailing against Torino, a side that had conceded 10 goals while managing only two goals in their last five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were wrapping up their ongoing dissent in an ongoing feud with club owner Claudio Lotito.
This Year's Efforts Coming Unstitched?
Was the team's progress coming unstitched, or had there never been any cohesion holding it together from the beginning? Lazio reinstated Maurizio Sarri as head coach in the summer transfer window, before he to later acknowledge that the board had omitted to inform him about a registration embargo they were about to receive for financial irregularities. Speculation that he could resign were not true, but he did say that Lotito had "deceived" him.
The Roman club appeared equally disorganized in their performances as behind the scenes, overcoming Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but being defeated in the remaining opening fixtures, featuring the derby della Capitale. At any given moment, it's been difficult to tell if they're getting better or imploding.
Matteo's Surprising Return
A single player continued to smile amid the chaos. Matteo Cancellieri wasn't originally meant to feature for Lazio this season. He spent the last one at Parma as a loanee and, at the start of the off-season, his owning club were advocating for him to remain there temporarily. The transfer ban led to a change of plans. Lazio could not afford to thin their squad without replacements.
Cancellieri arrived originally under Sarri's first spell, at that time a 20-year-old alumnus of Verona's academy. He accumulated 20 Serie A appearances for Lazio in 2022-23, almost all of those as a substitute. The club's longtime sporting director, Igli Tare, who departed following that term, later stated Sarri of "informing all Cancellieri was destined for stardom only to bench him consistently."
Discovering His Natural Fit
Maybe Sarri was persistently working to identify the nature of his skill set. Billed as an attacking winger when he joined, Cancellieri yet was deployed for the majority of that term as a struggling deputy to Ciro Immobile in the striker role. In 63 appearances on loan at Empoli and Parma during recent campaigns, he scored seven times. Shoehorn
