The mood at Lazio's home ground was anything but joyful this past Saturday. The home side was losing against Torino, an opponent that had conceded ten goals while scoring only two in their previous five league matches. Supporters from the Curva Nord were finishing their most recent demonstration in an ongoing feud with president Claudio Lotito.
This Year's Efforts Falling Apart?
Was Lazio's season falling apart, or did there exist a binding element keeping it intact to start with? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri as head coach in the summer transfer window, but then he publicly stated that the board had not mentioned a registration embargo they were facing for fiscal problems. Reports that he could resign were not true, but he acknowledged that Lotito had "swindled" him.
Lazio were just as chaotic on the pitch as behind the scenes, defeating Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but falling short in their other first five games, featuring the derby della Capitale. At any given moment, observers have struggled to determine if they are improving or imploding.
The Youngster's Surprising Comeback
One individual continued to smile through it. Matteo Cancellieri had not been expected to be at Lazio this year. He spent the previous campaign at Parma as a loanee and, during the summer break, his owning club were advocating for him to stay there temporarily. The signing restriction forced a rethink. The club couldn't risk to reduce their roster with no new signings.
He signed in the first place during Sarri's previous tenure, then a 20-year-old product of Verona's academy. He recorded 20 league appearances for Lazio in that campaign, the vast majority of those from the bench. Their former sporting director, Igli Tare, whose tenure ended at the end of that season, subsequently claimed Sarri of "informing all Cancellieri would be a star only to bench him consistently."
Uncovering His Best Role
It's possible the coach was persistently working to identify the exact type of Cancellieri's abilities. Originally described as a flank player when he joined, Cancellieri yet was deployed for most of that campaign as an ineffective backup to Ciro Immobile as center forward. During 63 outings on loan at Empoli and Parma during recent campaigns, he netted seven goals. Shoehorn
