The mood at their home stadium was far from happy on Saturday afternoon. The home side was losing against Torino, an opponent that had allowed a total of 10 goals while managing only two goals in their previous five league matches. Supporters from the Curva Nord were finishing their most recent demonstration in a continuous dispute with president Claudio Lotito.
A Season Coming Unstitched?
Was the team's progress falling apart, or did there exist a thread keeping it intact to start with? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri as head coach this summer, only for him publicly stated that the management had omitted to inform him about a registration embargo they were about to receive for fiscal problems. Rumours that he could resign were not true, but he did say that Lotito had "misled" him.
The Roman club became as messy on the pitch as they were off it, defeating Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but falling short in the rest of their opening fixtures, featuring the derby della Capitale. From one game to the next, it has been hard to tell if they are improving or imploding.
Cancellieri's Unexpected Presence
A single player continued to smile through it. Matteo Cancellieri wasn't originally meant to feature for Lazio during this campaign. He completed last season at Parma as a loanee and, during the summer break, his parent club were advocating for him to remain there a while longer. The signing restriction led to a change of plans. The club couldn't risk to weaken their team without replacements.
He joined in the first place when Sarri was last in charge, back then just 20 years old graduate of Verona's academy. He recorded 20 league appearances with the club in that campaign, almost all of those as a substitute. The club's longtime sporting director, Igli Tare, who left following that term, subsequently claimed Sarri of "telling everyone Cancellieri would be a star then never playing him."
Uncovering His True Position
Maybe Sarri was continuing to attempt to work out the specific characteristics of Cancellieri's abilities. Originally described as a wide forward upon signing, Cancellieri instead found himself the majority of that term as an ineffective backup to Ciro Immobile at No 9. Across 63 games while playing for Empoli and Parma in the past two years, his tally was seven goals. Shoehorn
