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The mood at Lazio's home ground was far from happy this past Saturday. The home side was losing against Torino, a team that had conceded ten goals while scoring only two 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 Coming Unstitched?

Was Lazio's season coming unstitched, or did there exist a binding element maintaining its structure in the first place? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri as head coach during the off-season, before he to later acknowledge that the club had not mentioned a registration embargo they were about to receive for fiscal problems. Rumours that he might quit were not true, but he acknowledged that Lotito had "deceived" him.

Lazio were just as chaotic on the pitch as they were off it, beating 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 ascertain if they're getting better or self-destructing.

Matteo's Unexpected Comeback

At least one man kept smiling throughout. Matteo Cancellieri had not been expected to be at Lazio this year. He spent the previous campaign on loan at Parma and, early this summer, his owning club were pushing for him to extend his stay temporarily. The transfer ban forced a rethink. They were unable to thin their squad lacking backup options.

He joined in the first place under Sarri's first spell, back then just 20 years old product of Verona's academy. He accumulated 20 matches in the league for Lazio in 2022-23, the vast majority of those coming off the bench. The club's longtime sporting director, Igli Tare, who left after that campaign, would later accuse Sarri of "promising everyone Cancellieri would be a star only to bench him consistently."

Finding His Best Role

Maybe Sarri was persistently working to identify the nature of Cancellieri's abilities. Labeled as a wide forward when he joined, Cancellieri nevertheless spent the majority of that term as an ineffective backup to Ciro Immobile in the striker role. In 63 appearances while playing for Empoli and Parma over the last two seasons, he netted seven goals. Shoehorn