The mood at Lazio's home ground was far from happy this past Saturday. Lazio were trailing against Torino, a side that had allowed ten goals while scoring only two in their previous five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were wrapping up their most recent demonstration in a continuous dispute with president Claudio Lotito.
The Campaign Unraveling?
Was Lazio's season falling apart, or had there never been any cohesion maintaining its structure from the beginning? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri as head coach during the off-season, but then he to later acknowledge that the board had not mentioned a registration embargo they were facing for financial irregularities. Speculation that his departure was imminent were without basis, but he did say that Lotito had "swindled" him.
The Roman club were just as chaotic on the pitch as they were off it, overcoming Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but losing the remaining opening fixtures, featuring the derby della Capitale. At any given moment, observers have struggled to ascertain if they are improving or imploding.
Cancellieri's Unexpected Return
A single player remained positive through it. Matteo Cancellieri had not been expected to remain with Lazio this season. He completed the last one with Parma on loan and, during the summer break, Lazio were pushing for him to remain there for another season. The signing restriction forced a rethink. The club couldn't risk to thin their squad with no new signings.
He joined in the first place during Sarri's previous tenure, at that time a 20-year-old product of Verona's academy. He recorded 20 matches in the league for Lazio in the 2022-23 season, all but one of those as a substitute. Their former sporting director, Igli Tare, who departed after that campaign, subsequently claimed Sarri of "informing all Cancellieri would be a star then never playing him."
Finding His Best Role
Maybe Sarri was persistently working to work out the exact type of his skill set. Billed as a flank player when he joined, Cancellieri instead found himself most of that campaign as an unconvincing alternative to Ciro Immobile as center forward. Across 63 games during spells with Empoli and Parma during recent campaigns, he scored seven times. Shoehorn
