Lazio Club Focus: Drowned in the Azzurri’s Sea of Revenge

Date: 22nd September 2015 at 2:00pm
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Last week the Eagle had landed, this week it’s feathers were literally plucked clean off by a rampant Napoli outfit.

Napoli-Lazio-Higuain

One has to imagine how long it will take Lazio to bounce back from this past weekend. A visit to the Stadio San Paolo on Sunday had the makings for an intriguing affair between two sides that have been uncharacteristically poor at times but have shown relative force in the start of their Europa League journeys.

Lazio’s injury woes have been well documented already, although they looked free from any hinderances when they took on last year’s bane of Napoli and competition runners-up Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk on Thursday night.

Albeit with the lack of a daunting away atmosphere inside the empty Dnipro Arena, the Biancocelesti easily outshot the home side before Sergej Milinkovic-Savic netted the breakthrough with a header just before the break. Sadly, the three points were pulled from Lazio’s grasp right at the death by Yehven Selezynov’s header and the team missed out on a first place spot in Group G after Saint Etienne and Rosenborg drew level in their clash.

Napoli were spared the travel time and met with Club Brugge at the San Paolo, Dnipro’s quarter-final victims from last year. Few might have predicted the devastating 5-0 result that Napoli dealt the Belgian Pro League runners-up, but the Partenopei gladly shrugged off the doubters by taking the first victory under Maurizio Sarri.
lazio

Four days later the San Paolo was filled once again to see which of the Europa League hangovers were worse. Lazio were certainly not ready for anything that transpired, and lost 5-0. The Azzurri revelled in having complete vengeance over a Lazio side that found victory in the Coppa Italia semi-final at the San Paolo last April as well as a vital third place Serie A playoff match in May with Champions League football at stake.

Right off the bat Stefano Pioli must have been wondering what might’ve been in this encounter, as Dusan Basta opened up the match with plenty of cleverness up the right flank to set up a shot square in front of goal for Keita Balde within the opening five minutes, but the 20-year-old let the pressure get to him and skied his effort.

Remember when Antonio Candreva did that against Chievo?

Only a minute later Gonzalo Higuain punished the visitors with one of the goals of the week by rounding off Wesley Hoedt far too easily and rifled an unstoppable effort past Federico Marchetti.

Lazio didn’t register a single shot on target until the 90th minute, and they now share the league leading worst goals against total at 10 along with second last placed Carpi. Stefano Pioli was blunt following the match.

lazio dnipro

“We were not ourselves on the pitch tonight,” he told Mediaset Premium.

“We became very stretched at the crucial moments, but Napoli also played on Thursday. We will examine the game again with the team as these performances are unacceptable.”

Lets hope the Blucerchiati can take a page from Napoli’s book and avenge the recent turmoil against the Grifone immediately.

 

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