The atmosphere at Lazio's home ground was anything but joyful this past Saturday. Lazio were trailing against Torino, an opponent that had conceded a total of 10 goals while netting just two in their most recent five league matches. Supporters from the Curva Nord were finishing their most recent demonstration in a long-running conflict with president Claudio Lotito.
The Campaign Falling Apart?
Had their campaign coming unstitched, or had there never been a binding element holding it together to start with? Lazio reinstated Maurizio Sarri to lead the team in the summer transfer window, only for him publicly stated that the club had omitted to inform him about a ban on new signings they were about to receive for fiscal problems. Rumours that he might quit were not true, but he did say that Lotito had "swindled" him.
Lazio became as messy on the pitch as they were off it, overcoming Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but being defeated in the rest of their first five games, featuring the derby della Capitale. At any given moment, observers have struggled to determine if they are improving or collapsing.
Cancellieri's Unexpected Comeback
One individual kept smiling through it. Matteo Cancellieri had not been expected to be at Lazio during this campaign. He was on the last one at Parma as a loanee and, during the summer break, his parent club were attempting to stay there temporarily. The signing restriction forced a rethink. Lazio could not afford to thin their squad lacking backup options.
Cancellieri arrived initially under Sarri's first spell, at that time a 20-year-old alumnus of Verona's academy. He recorded 20 matches in the league with the club in 2022-23, all but one of those from the bench. Their former sporting director, Igli Tare, whose tenure ended after that campaign, subsequently claimed Sarri of "promising everyone Cancellieri was destined for stardom but then not selecting him."
Finding His True Position
It's possible the coach was persistently working to determine the exact type of his skill set. Billed as a flank player upon signing, Cancellieri nevertheless spent much of that season as an unconvincing alternative to Ciro Immobile in the striker role. Across 63 games while playing for Empoli and Parma in the past two years, he scored seven times. Shoehorn
