The feeling at their home stadium was decidedly gloomy on Saturday afternoon. The Biancocelesti found themselves behind against Torino, a side that had conceded a total of 10 goals while managing only two goals in their previous five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were finishing their latest protest in a long-running conflict with club owner Claudio Lotito.
A Season Unraveling?
Had their campaign unraveling, or did there exist any cohesion maintaining its structure to start with? The club brought back Maurizio Sarri to lead the team during the off-season, but then he to later acknowledge that the management had omitted to inform him about the transfer ban they were facing for accounting issues. Rumours that his departure was imminent were not true, but he stated that Lotito had "deceived" him.
The Roman club appeared equally disorganized on the pitch as behind the scenes, defeating Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but falling short in the rest of their first five games, featuring the derby della Capitale. Throughout this period, it has been hard to ascertain if progress is being made or imploding.
Cancellieri's Unforeseen Return
At least one man continued to smile throughout. Matteo Cancellieri had not been expected to be at Lazio during this campaign. He spent the previous campaign on loan at Parma and, early this summer, his owning club were advocating for him to stay there temporarily. The signing restriction led to a change of plans. Lazio could not afford to thin their squad with no new signings.
He joined initially during Sarri's previous tenure, back then just 20 years old alumnus of Verona's academy. He accumulated 20 Serie A appearances with the club in that campaign, all but one of those from the bench. The club's longtime sporting director, Igli Tare, who departed after that campaign, later stated Sarri of "telling everyone Cancellieri was destined for stardom only to bench him consistently."
Discovering His True Position
It's possible the coach was still trying to determine the specific characteristics of his skill set. Labeled as a flank player on arrival, Cancellieri instead found himself most of that campaign as an ineffective backup to Ciro Immobile in the striker role. In 63 appearances during spells with Empoli and Parma in the past two years, he netted seven goals. Shoehorn
