The mood at Lazio's home ground was anything but joyful during the weekend fixture. The home side was losing against Torino, a team that had allowed a total of 10 goals while managing only two goals in their last five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were concluding their most recent demonstration in a continuous dispute with club owner Claudio Lotito.
The Campaign Coming Unstitched?
Had their campaign falling apart, or was there ever a binding element holding it together to start with? Lazio reinstated Maurizio Sarri to lead the team during the off-season, but then he to later acknowledge that the club had not mentioned the transfer ban they were facing for accounting issues. Rumours that he might quit were without basis, but he stated that Lotito had "swindled" him.
Lazio were just as chaotic during matches as behind the scenes, defeating Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but falling short in their other opening fixtures, featuring the derby della Capitale. At any given moment, observers have struggled to tell if they're getting better or imploding.
The Youngster's Surprising Comeback
At least one man continued to smile amid the chaos. Matteo Cancellieri was not even supposed to feature for Lazio this year. He was on last season with Parma on loan and, at the start of the off-season, his parent club were advocating for him to stay there for another season. The transfer ban forced a rethink. Lazio could not afford to thin their squad lacking backup options.
He signed in the first place when Sarri was last in charge, then a 20-year-old product of Verona's academy. He recorded 20 Serie A appearances for Lazio in that campaign, almost all of those as a substitute. The club's longtime sporting director, Igli Tare, whose tenure ended after that campaign, later stated Sarri of "promising everyone Cancellieri was destined for stardom then never playing him."
Discovering His Natural Fit
Maybe Sarri was persistently working to work out the exact type of Cancellieri's abilities. Billed as an attacking winger when he joined, Cancellieri yet was deployed for most of that campaign as an ineffective backup to Ciro Immobile as center forward. During 63 outings during spells with Empoli and Parma over the last two seasons, he scored seven times. Shoehorn
