The mood at their home stadium was anything but joyful on Saturday afternoon. Lazio were trailing against Torino, a team that had let in a total of 10 goals while scoring only two in their previous five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were wrapping up their most recent demonstration in a long-running conflict with president Claudio Lotito.
A Season Unraveling?
Was Lazio's season coming unstitched, or was there ever a binding element keeping it intact from the beginning? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri to lead the team in the summer transfer window, only for him to later acknowledge that the club had omitted to inform him about a registration embargo they were set to be hit with for fiscal problems. Rumours that his departure was imminent were unfounded, but he acknowledged that Lotito had "misled" him.
Lazio were just as chaotic in their performances as off the field, overcoming Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but being defeated in the rest of their opening fixtures, featuring the derby della Capitale. At any given moment, it's been difficult to tell if they're getting better or collapsing.
The Youngster's Unexpected Presence
A single player kept smiling throughout. Matteo Cancellieri had not been expected to remain with Lazio this year. He spent the last one on loan at Parma and, during the summer break, Lazio were attempting to stay there for another season. The transfer ban necessitated a reconsideration. They were unable to weaken their team lacking backup options.
He signed originally when Sarri was last in charge, at that time a 20-year-old graduate of Verona's academy. He accumulated 20 matches in the league for Lazio in that campaign, the vast majority of those coming off the bench. The club's longtime sporting director, Igli Tare, whose tenure ended following that term, later stated Sarri of "telling everyone Cancellieri was destined for stardom but then not selecting him."
Discovering His True Position
Perhaps the manager was persistently working to determine the exact type of his skill set. Originally described as an attacking winger upon signing, Cancellieri yet was deployed for most of that campaign as an unconvincing alternative to Ciro Immobile in the striker role. Across 63 games while playing for Empoli and Parma in the past two years, he scored seven times. Shoehorn
