The atmosphere at Lazio's home ground was far from happy on Saturday afternoon. Lazio were trailing against Torino, a team that had allowed a total of 10 goals while managing only two goals in their last five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were finishing their ongoing dissent in a long-running conflict with club owner Claudio Lotito.
A Season Falling Apart?
Had their campaign falling apart, or had there never been a thread holding it together from the beginning? Lazio reinstated Maurizio Sarri to lead the team this summer, but then he publicly stated that the board had not mentioned a registration embargo they were facing for fiscal problems. Speculation that he might quit were unfounded, but he did say that Lotito had "deceived" him.
Lazio were just as chaotic on the pitch as they were off it, overcoming Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but falling short in the rest of their first five games, featuring the derby della Capitale. Throughout this period, it has been hard to tell if they are improving or self-destructing.
The Youngster's Unexpected Comeback
A single player remained positive amid the chaos. Matteo Cancellieri had not been expected to be at Lazio during this campaign. He was on last season on loan at Parma and, early this summer, his parent club were attempting to stay there a while longer. The signing restriction forced a rethink. They were unable to reduce their roster lacking backup options.
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 the 2022-23 season, all but one of those as a substitute. The club's longtime sporting director, Igli Tare, who left after that campaign, would later accuse Sarri of "informing all Cancellieri had superstar potential only to bench him consistently."
Discovering His True Position
Perhaps the manager was continuing to attempt to work out the exact type of the player's talent. Billed as a flank player when he joined, Cancellieri instead found himself most of that campaign as a struggling deputy to Ciro Immobile as center forward. Across 63 games during spells with Empoli and Parma over the last two seasons, he scored seven times. Shoehorn
