The mood at their home stadium was anything but joyful on Saturday afternoon. The home side was losing against Torino, a team that had conceded ten goals while scoring only two in their last five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were wrapping up their ongoing dissent in a long-running conflict with president Claudio Lotito.
A Season Coming Unstitched?
Was Lazio's season coming unstitched, or had there never been a binding element keeping it intact from the beginning? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri as head coach this summer, before he admitted that the club had not mentioned a ban on new signings they were facing for financial irregularities. Speculation that he could resign were unfounded, but he acknowledged that Lotito had "misled" him.
Lazio were just as chaotic in their performances as behind the scenes, defeating Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but losing the remaining initial five matches, including the Rome derby. Throughout this period, observers have struggled to ascertain if progress is being made or self-destructing.
Cancellieri's Unexpected Comeback
One individual continued to smile amid the chaos. Matteo Cancellieri had not been expected to feature for Lazio this season. He completed the last one at Parma as a loanee and, at the start of the off-season, his owning club were advocating for him to remain there a while longer. The transfer ban forced a rethink. The club couldn't risk to thin their squad without replacements.
He signed originally when Sarri was last in charge, back then just 20 years old alumnus of Verona's academy. He accumulated 20 Serie A appearances with the club in the 2022-23 season, the vast majority of those coming off the bench. Their former sporting director, Igli Tare, who left after that campaign, later stated 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 work out the nature of his skill set. Billed as a flank player when he joined, Cancellieri yet was deployed for most of that campaign as a struggling deputy to Ciro Immobile as center forward. In 63 appearances on loan at Empoli and Parma during recent campaigns, he netted seven goals. Shoehorn
