The feeling at Lazio's home ground was far from happy during the weekend fixture. The home side was losing against Torino, a team that had allowed ten goals while netting just two in their previous five league matches. Ultras from the Curva Nord were concluding their latest protest in a long-running conflict with president Claudio Lotito.
The Campaign Falling Apart?
Was Lazio's season unraveling, or had there never been a thread keeping it intact in the first place? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri as head coach this summer, before he admitted that the club had omitted to inform him about a ban on new signings they were about to receive for financial irregularities. Rumours that he might quit were without basis, but he stated that Lotito had "misled" him.
Lazio appeared equally disorganized in their performances as behind the scenes, overcoming Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but losing their other first five games, featuring the derby della Capitale. At any given moment, it has been hard to ascertain if progress is being made or imploding.
The Youngster's Surprising Return
At least one man continued to smile throughout. Matteo Cancellieri wasn't originally meant to feature for Lazio during this campaign. He was on the previous campaign with Parma on loan and, at the start of the off-season, his owning club were pushing for him to remain there for another season. The transfer ban led to a change of plans. They were unable to weaken their team with no new signings.
He signed originally under Sarri's first spell, at that time a 20-year-old alumnus of Verona's academy. He accumulated 20 league appearances with the club in the 2022-23 season, almost all of those as a substitute. The ex- sporting director, Igli Tare, whose tenure ended following that term, subsequently claimed Sarri of "informing all Cancellieri would be a star only to bench him consistently."
Finding His Natural Fit
Maybe Sarri was continuing to attempt to identify the exact type of the player's talent. Labeled as a flank player when he joined, Cancellieri yet was deployed for the majority of that term as an ineffective backup to Ciro Immobile in the striker role. Across 63 games during spells with Empoli and Parma during recent campaigns, he netted seven goals. Shoehorn
