🔗 Share this article

The feeling at Lazio's home ground was far from happy during the weekend fixture. Lazio were trailing against Torino, a side that had conceded a total of 10 goals while managing only two goals in their previous five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were finishing their most recent demonstration in a continuous dispute with chairman Claudio Lotito.

This Year's Efforts Unraveling?

Had their campaign falling apart, or had there never been a binding element keeping it intact from the beginning? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri to lead the team in the summer transfer window, before he admitted that the board had omitted to inform him about a registration embargo they were facing for accounting issues. Rumours that he could resign were not true, but he did say that Lotito had "misled" him.

The Biancocelesti were just as chaotic in their performances as off the field, beating Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but falling short in their other opening fixtures, which included the capital clash. At any given moment, it's been difficult to ascertain if progress is being made or self-destructing.

The Youngster's Unforeseen Return

A single player remained positive through it. Matteo Cancellieri was not even supposed to feature for Lazio during this campaign. He spent the last one on loan at Parma and, during the summer break, his parent club were advocating for him to extend his stay a while longer. The registration embargo forced a rethink. Lazio could not afford to weaken their team with no new signings.

He joined originally when Sarri was last in charge, back then just 20 years old product of Verona's academy. He made 20 matches in the league with the club in that campaign, all but one of those from the bench. The ex- sporting director, Igli Tare, whose tenure ended following that term, later stated Sarri of "telling everyone Cancellieri would be a star but then not selecting him."

Uncovering His Best Role

It's possible the coach was persistently working to determine the exact type of his skill set. Billed as an attacking winger on arrival, Cancellieri yet was deployed for 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, his tally was seven goals. Shoehorn