The mood at the Stadio Olimpico was anything but joyful this past Saturday. The home side was losing against Torino, an opponent that had allowed ten goals while netting just two in their most recent five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were concluding their latest protest in an ongoing feud with president Claudio Lotito.
A Season Coming Unstitched?
Was the team's progress falling apart, or was there ever a binding element holding it together in the first place? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri as manager during the off-season, before he to later acknowledge that the club had not mentioned a ban on new signings they were about to receive for accounting issues. Speculation that he could resign were not true, but he did say that Lotito had "swindled" him.
The Biancocelesti became as messy in their performances as off the field, beating Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but being defeated in the remaining opening fixtures, including the Rome derby. Throughout this period, observers have struggled to ascertain if they're getting better or collapsing.
Cancellieri's Surprising Comeback
One individual kept smiling amid the chaos. Matteo Cancellieri had not been expected to feature for Lazio during this campaign. He was on last season at Parma as a loanee and, at the start of the off-season, Lazio were advocating for him to remain there for another season. The signing restriction forced a rethink. They were unable to reduce their roster with no new signings.
Cancellieri arrived in the first place during Sarri's previous tenure, then a 20-year-old product of Verona's academy. He accumulated 20 league appearances for Lazio in 2022-23, almost all of those coming off the bench. The club's longtime sporting director, Igli Tare, whose tenure ended at the end of that season, subsequently claimed Sarri of "promising everyone Cancellieri would be a star only to bench him consistently."
Discovering His True Position
It's possible the coach was persistently working to work out the nature of the player's talent. Originally described as an attacking winger on arrival, Cancellieri instead found himself much of that season as an ineffective backup to Ciro Immobile in the striker role. Across 63 games during spells with Empoli and Parma during recent campaigns, he scored seven times. Shoehorn
