The atmosphere at their home stadium was anything but joyful on Saturday afternoon. The home side was losing against Torino, a team that had let in ten goals while scoring only two in their last five league matches. Ultras from the Curva Nord were finishing their latest protest in an ongoing feud with club owner Claudio Lotito.
A Season Unraveling?
Had their campaign coming unstitched, or had there never been any cohesion holding it together to start with? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri as head coach during the off-season, only for him to later acknowledge that the board had failed to disclose a registration embargo they were about to receive for financial irregularities. Speculation that he could resign were unfounded, but he did say that Lotito had "swindled" him.
The Roman club appeared equally disorganized on the pitch as off the field, beating Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but being defeated in their other first five games, including the Rome derby. At any given moment, it has been hard to tell if they're getting better or imploding.
The Youngster's Surprising Return
At least one man continued to smile amid the chaos. Matteo Cancellieri was not even supposed to feature for Lazio during this campaign. He completed last season on loan at Parma and, at the start of the off-season, his owning club were advocating for him to extend his stay for another season. The registration embargo forced a rethink. The club couldn't risk to weaken their team lacking backup options.
Cancellieri arrived initially under Sarri's first spell, back then just 20 years old graduate of Verona's academy. He accumulated 20 matches in the league for Lazio in that campaign, almost all of those from the bench. The club's longtime sporting director, Igli Tare, who departed following that term, would later accuse Sarri of "promising everyone Cancellieri would be a star but then not selecting him."
Finding His True Position
Maybe Sarri was persistently working to work out the exact type of Cancellieri's abilities. Labeled as a flank player on arrival, Cancellieri yet was deployed for the majority of that term as a struggling deputy to Ciro Immobile in the striker role. In 63 appearances while playing for Empoli and Parma in the past two years, he netted seven goals. Shoehorn
