🔗 Share this article Cancellieri Demonstrates Brief Sparks of Brilliance in Bright Spot for Haywire Lazio The mood at Lazio's home ground was far from happy on Saturday afternoon. Lazio were trailing against Torino, a team that had allowed ten goals while netting just two in their previous five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were finishing their latest protest in a continuous dispute with club owner Claudio Lotito. A Season Coming Unstitched? Was Lazio's season falling apart, or was there ever a thread holding it together in the first place? Lazio reinstated Maurizio Sarri as head coach this summer, but then he publicly stated that the board had failed to disclose a registration embargo they were facing for fiscal problems. Rumours that his departure was imminent were without basis, but he did say that Lotito had "misled" him. Lazio were just as chaotic during matches as off the field, defeating Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but falling short in the rest of their initial five matches, which included the capital clash. At any given moment, observers have struggled to determine if progress is being made or collapsing. The Youngster'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 last one at Parma as a loanee and, during the summer break, his owning club were advocating for him to extend his stay for another season. The transfer ban forced a rethink. The club couldn't risk to weaken their team with no new signings. Cancellieri arrived in the first place under Sarri's first spell, then a 20-year-old product of Verona's academy. He made 20 league appearances with the club in that campaign, almost all of those coming off the bench. The ex- sporting director, Igli Tare, whose tenure ended after that campaign, subsequently claimed Sarri of "telling everyone Cancellieri would be a star only to bench him consistently." Discovering His Best Role It's possible the coach was continuing to attempt to identify the exact type of Cancellieri's abilities. Billed as a flank player upon signing, Cancellieri yet was deployed for most of that campaign as an unconvincing alternative to Ciro Immobile at No 9. In 63 appearances during spells with Empoli and Parma during recent campaigns, he scored seven times. Shoehorn