The mood at their home stadium was anything but joyful on Saturday afternoon. The home side was losing against Torino, a side that had let in a total of 10 goals while scoring only two in their last five league matches. Ultras from the Curva Nord were finishing their latest protest in a long-running conflict with president Claudio Lotito.
A Season Coming Unstitched?
Was Lazio's season unraveling, or had there never been a thread holding it together from the beginning? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri as manager during the off-season, only for him to later acknowledge that the management had failed to disclose the transfer ban they were set to be hit with for fiscal problems. Speculation that he might quit were not true, but he acknowledged that Lotito had "deceived" him.
Lazio appeared equally disorganized during matches as off the field, overcoming Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but losing the remaining initial five matches, featuring the derby della Capitale. At any given moment, it's been difficult to determine if they are improving or self-destructing.
Cancellieri's Surprising Comeback
A single player continued to smile through it. Matteo Cancellieri had not been expected to be at Lazio during this campaign. He was on the previous campaign at Parma as a loanee and, early this summer, his parent club were attempting to extend his stay temporarily. The registration embargo forced a rethink. Lazio could not afford to reduce their roster with no new signings.
He signed in the first place under Sarri's first spell, then a 20-year-old graduate of Verona's academy. He recorded 20 league appearances with the club in 2022-23, all but one of those from the bench. Their former sporting director, Igli Tare, who left at the end of that season, would later accuse Sarri of "promising everyone Cancellieri had superstar potential but then not selecting him."
Uncovering His Best Role
Maybe Sarri was continuing to attempt to identify the nature of his skill set. Labeled as a flank player when he joined, Cancellieri yet was deployed for much of that season as an ineffective backup to Ciro Immobile as center forward. Across 63 games on loan at Empoli and Parma in the past two years, he scored seven times. Shoehorn
