The mood at their home stadium was decidedly gloomy this past Saturday. The Biancocelesti found themselves behind against Torino, a side that had conceded a total of 10 goals while managing only two goals in their previous five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were finishing their latest protest in an ongoing feud with club owner Claudio Lotito.
The Campaign Unraveling?
Was Lazio's season coming unstitched, or had there never been a binding element maintaining its structure to start with? Lazio reinstated Maurizio Sarri as head coach in the summer transfer window, before he admitted that the management had omitted to inform him about a registration embargo they were about to receive for fiscal problems. Reports that he might quit were not true, but he acknowledged that Lotito had "swindled" him.
Lazio were just as chaotic during matches as behind the scenes, beating Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but being defeated in their other first five games, including the Rome derby. At any given moment, observers have struggled to tell if progress is being made or imploding.
The Youngster's Surprising Return
At least one man continued to smile through it. Matteo Cancellieri wasn't originally meant to be at Lazio this year. He spent last season with Parma on loan and, at the start of the off-season, his parent club were attempting to extend his stay temporarily. The signing restriction forced a rethink. The club couldn't risk to weaken their team lacking backup options.
He joined in the first place under Sarri's first spell, at that time a 20-year-old product of Verona's academy. He recorded 20 Serie A appearances for Lazio in the 2022-23 season, almost all of those as a substitute. The club's longtime sporting director, Igli Tare, whose tenure ended after that campaign, would later accuse Sarri of "telling everyone Cancellieri was destined for stardom only to bench him consistently."
Finding His Best Role
Maybe Sarri was persistently working to identify the nature of Cancellieri's abilities. Labeled as a flank player on arrival, Cancellieri yet was deployed for much of that season as a struggling deputy to Ciro Immobile in the striker role. Across 63 games during spells with Empoli and Parma over the last two seasons, his tally was seven goals. Shoehorn
