The mood at their home stadium was far from happy during the weekend fixture. Lazio were trailing against Torino, an opponent that had let in a total of 10 goals while managing only two goals in their last five league matches. Ultras from the Curva Nord were wrapping up their latest protest in an ongoing feud with president Claudio Lotito.
A Season Unraveling?
Had their campaign unraveling, or was there ever any cohesion keeping it intact to start with? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri to lead the team in the summer transfer window, only for him to later acknowledge that the management had failed to disclose a registration embargo they were set to be hit with for financial irregularities. Reports that he might quit were without basis, but he did say that Lotito had "misled" him.
Lazio appeared equally disorganized 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. Throughout this period, it's been difficult to determine if progress is being made or imploding.
Cancellieri's Unforeseen Comeback
A single player continued to smile throughout. Matteo Cancellieri wasn't originally meant to feature for Lazio during this campaign. He was on last season at Parma as a loanee and, early this summer, his owning club were advocating for him to stay there a while longer. The signing restriction led to a change of plans. They were unable to weaken their team without replacements.
Cancellieri arrived in the first place when Sarri was last in charge, then a 20-year-old graduate of Verona's academy. He accumulated 20 matches in the league for Lazio in the 2022-23 season, all but one of those from the bench. Their former sporting director, Igli Tare, who departed after that campaign, would later accuse Sarri of "telling everyone Cancellieri would be a star but then not selecting him."
Finding His True Position
Perhaps the manager was continuing to attempt to work out the exact type of Cancellieri's abilities. Billed as a wide forward when he joined, Cancellieri nevertheless spent the majority of that term as an ineffective backup to Ciro Immobile as center forward. Across 63 games during spells with Empoli and Parma in the past two years, he netted seven goals. Shoehorn
