The feeling at their home stadium was anything but joyful this past Saturday. The home side was losing against Torino, a team that had allowed 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 a long-running conflict with chairman Claudio Lotito.
A Season Coming Unstitched?
Had their campaign coming unstitched, or had there never been a binding element maintaining its structure from the beginning? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri as head coach in the summer transfer window, before he admitted that the management had not mentioned a registration embargo they were facing for financial irregularities. Rumours that he could resign were not true, but he did say that Lotito had "deceived" him.
The Roman club became as messy during matches as off the field, beating Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but falling short in their other first five games, which included the capital clash. From one game to the next, it has been hard to determine if they are improving or collapsing.
Cancellieri's Unforeseen Return
A single player continued to smile through it. Matteo Cancellieri wasn't originally meant to feature for Lazio during this campaign. He spent the last one on loan at Parma and, at the start of the off-season, Lazio were pushing for him to stay there for another season. The registration embargo led to a change of plans. Lazio could not afford to weaken their team without replacements.
He signed originally under Sarri's first spell, back then just 20 years old graduate 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. The club's longtime sporting director, Igli Tare, who left at the end of that season, would later accuse Sarri of "telling everyone Cancellieri had superstar potential only to bench him consistently."
Discovering His True Position
Perhaps the manager was still trying to determine the specific characteristics of Cancellieri's abilities. Labeled as a flank player upon signing, Cancellieri instead found himself much of that season as an unconvincing alternative to Ciro Immobile at No 9. Across 63 games during spells with Empoli and Parma in the past two years, he scored seven times. Shoehorn
