The mood at their home stadium was anything but joyful on Saturday afternoon. The home side was losing against Torino, an opponent that had let in ten goals while managing only two goals in their previous five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were finishing their latest protest in an ongoing feud with club owner Claudio Lotito.
The Campaign Falling Apart?
Was Lazio's season coming unstitched, or was there ever a thread maintaining its structure in the first place? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri as manager this summer, before he admitted that the management had omitted to inform him about a registration embargo they were facing for financial irregularities. Speculation that his departure was imminent were without basis, but he did say that Lotito had "deceived" him.
Lazio appeared equally disorganized on the pitch as behind the scenes, beating Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but being defeated in the rest of their first five games, featuring the derby della Capitale. At any given moment, it has been hard to ascertain if progress is being made or collapsing.
The Youngster's Unforeseen Return
A single player continued to smile through it. Matteo Cancellieri wasn't originally meant to remain with Lazio this season. He was on last season at Parma as a loanee and, at the start of the off-season, Lazio were attempting to remain there a while longer. The transfer ban led to a change of plans. The club couldn't risk to thin their squad lacking backup options.
Cancellieri arrived in the first place when Sarri was last in charge, at that time a 20-year-old product of Verona's academy. He made 20 league appearances for Lazio in that campaign, almost all of those from the bench. The club's longtime sporting director, Igli Tare, who left at the end of that season, would later accuse Sarri of "informing all Cancellieri was destined for stardom only to bench him consistently."
Discovering His Natural Fit
Maybe Sarri was continuing to attempt to work out the exact type of Cancellieri's abilities. Billed as a flank player when he joined, Cancellieri yet was deployed for the majority of that term as a struggling deputy to Ciro Immobile at No 9. Across 63 games while playing for Empoli and Parma in the past two years, he scored seven times. Shoehorn
