The mood at their home stadium was decidedly gloomy this past Saturday. The home side was losing against Torino, a side that had allowed a total of 10 goals while scoring only two in their previous five league matches. Ultras from the Curva Nord were finishing their ongoing dissent in a continuous dispute with club owner Claudio Lotito.
The Campaign Falling Apart?
Was Lazio's season coming unstitched, or did there exist any cohesion holding it together in the first place? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri as head coach this summer, but then he admitted that the management had omitted to inform him about a registration embargo they were facing for accounting issues. Rumours that he could resign were not true, but he acknowledged that Lotito had "swindled" him.
The Biancocelesti were just as chaotic during matches as they were off it, overcoming Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but being defeated in their other first five games, including the Rome derby. At any given moment, it has been hard to ascertain if progress is being made or collapsing.
Matteo's Unforeseen Comeback
One individual continued to smile through it. Matteo Cancellieri was not even supposed to feature for Lazio this season. 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 stay there temporarily. The signing restriction forced a rethink. The club couldn't risk to weaken their team with no new signings.
Cancellieri arrived originally during Sarri's previous tenure, back then just 20 years old graduate of Verona's academy. He accumulated 20 league appearances with the club in the 2022-23 season, all but one of those as a substitute. Their former sporting director, Igli Tare, whose tenure ended after that campaign, subsequently claimed Sarri of "telling everyone Cancellieri was destined for stardom only to bench him consistently."
Discovering His Natural Fit
It's possible the coach was still trying to determine the specific characteristics of Cancellieri's abilities. Labeled as an attacking winger when he joined, Cancellieri yet was deployed for most of that campaign as an unconvincing alternative to Ciro Immobile as center forward. During 63 outings on loan at Empoli and Parma during recent campaigns, he scored seven times. Shoehorn
