The mood at Lazio's home ground was far from happy on Saturday afternoon. The home side was losing against Torino, an opponent that had allowed ten goals while managing only two goals in their previous five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were wrapping up their most recent demonstration in a continuous dispute with chairman Claudio Lotito.
A Season Unraveling?
Was the team's progress falling apart, or was there ever any cohesion keeping it intact to start with? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri as manager in the summer transfer window, before he publicly stated that the management had failed to disclose a ban on new signings they were facing for financial irregularities. Rumours that he might quit were not true, but he acknowledged that Lotito had "swindled" him.
Lazio became as messy in their performances as off the field, overcoming Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but falling short in their other initial five matches, including the Rome derby. From one game to the next, observers have struggled to tell if they are improving or imploding.
Cancellieri's Surprising Presence
At least one man continued to smile amid the chaos. Matteo Cancellieri was not even supposed to remain with Lazio this season. He was on the previous campaign at Parma as a loanee and, at the start of the off-season, his owning club were advocating for him to stay there temporarily. The signing restriction forced a rethink. They were unable to weaken their team without replacements.
Cancellieri arrived originally under Sarri's first spell, at that time a 20-year-old product of Verona's academy. He accumulated 20 league appearances with the club in the 2022-23 season, almost all of those coming off the bench. The club's longtime sporting director, Igli Tare, who departed after that campaign, subsequently claimed Sarri of "promising everyone Cancellieri would be a star only to bench him consistently."
Finding His Natural Fit
It's possible the coach was continuing to attempt to work out the exact type of Cancellieri's abilities. Billed as a flank player upon signing, Cancellieri instead found himself most of that campaign as a struggling deputy to Ciro Immobile in the striker role. In 63 appearances on loan at Empoli and Parma during recent campaigns, he scored seven times. Shoehorn
