Magic from Di Vaio
An incredible goal by youngster Di Vaio secured Lazio progress to the quarter finals of the Uefa Cup for the first time in their history. Cravero had made it 1-0 in the middle of the first half. The qualification, following the 2-1 win away in the first leg, was never in any doubt.
The season so far
At the end of the 1993-94 season Sergio Cragnotti surprised everybody by giving the Lazio managerial job to Zdeneck Zeman. The Czech coach had impressed the world with his incredible tactical organisation at Foggia. Two of his former players had been signed by Lazio during the summer: Roberto Rambaudi and Jose Chamot. They joined another former Foggia star Beppe Signori.
Dino Zoff, who had bored everybody to tears in recent years, was promoted to club President. In this way Cragnotti did not lose the charisma of the former World Champion, very important particularly for PR reasons.
The season started relatively well. Lazio’s main ambition was a place in Europe in some way or form and to play well. They managed to keep a high standard of play – a couple of 5-1’s (against Napoli and Padova) – despite an occasional pause (losing the derby for example).
In Coppa Italia, Lazio passed the first two rounds with some difficulty in the second round against Piacenza. In the UEFA Cup, Lazio had some trouble in scoring away from home. The Biancocelesti passed the first round comfortably but had to wait to the very last dying seconds before getting rid of Trelleborgs FF from Sweden in the second round.
In the third round against Trabzonspor the first leg was in Turkey and Lazio managed to score their first two away goals and guaranteeing themselves good odds of reaching the quarter finals.
The match: Tuesday, December 6, 1994, Rome, Stadio Olimpico
Lazio went into the match fairly confident of going through to the next round. The 2-1 win in the first leg was a comfortable safety net. Lazio closed all the gaps and the Turkish side did not look capable of overturning the result.
In the 25th minute there was a free kick after Diego Fuser was fouled near the penalty box on the right. Signori crossed the ball in high and Roberto Cravero was there to head the ball into the net.
At this point the main objective became trying to get Signori to score his first international goal with Lazio. He had never scored in Europe, despite being the best scorer in Italy for two consecutive years. He had a few chances but then Zeman decided to save the striker’s energy for the Campionato and substituted him with Di Vaio twenty minutes through the second half.
In the meantime Trabzonspor were increasingly menacing and Luca Marchegiani had to push a dangerous shot from Orhan Kaynak into corner. Fuser had another chance but kicked the ball straight at the goalkeeper. With Signori gone Lazio then had their usual five minutes of madness and Trabzonspor scored. Chamot lost a risky ball at midfield, Soner Boz passed it to Hami Mandirali who found Marchegiani way too far out of the goal. He went round him and deposited the ball in the net to make it 1-1.
At this point the Black Sea Turks had to score another two goals to go through the next round but a superb goal from youngster Marco Di Vaio closed the match. He received the ball on left from a throw in, two strides and he hammered a volley that ended up in the top hand corner. An incredible goal from a great talent with a bright future.
Who played for Lazio
Marchegiani, Negro, Cravero, Chamot, Favalli (83’ Bacci), Fuser, Venturin, Winter, Rambaudi, Casiraghi, Signori (65’ Di Vaio)
Manager: Zeman
Who played for Trabzonspor
Nikat, Lemi, Hamdi, Ozkoylu, Tolunay, Abdullah, Gengiz, Unal, Soner, Haml, Orhan.
Substitutes: Ramazan, Ender, Osman, Zafer, Somavl
Manager: Senol Gunes
Referee: Heyemann (Germany)
Goals: 25’ Cravero, 73’ Hami, 75’ Di Vaio
What happened next
Lazio’s Uefa Cup quarter final saw the Biancocelesti having to face Borussia Dortmund of former player Karl Heinz Riedle. The first leg saw Lazio win 1-0 thanks to an own goal. Dortmund won the return match 2-0 thanks to a non-existent penalty at the beginning of the game and a Riedle goal at two minutes from time. Lazio were unlucky with Signori out for injury and a referee who had clear problems with his eyesight (incredible penalty not given to the Biancocelesti).
In Coppa Italia Lazio reached the semi-finals after knocking out Napoli in the quarter finals. Lazio lost the first game 1-0 at home against Juventus but almost turned it around in the return leg. They lost 2-1 in injury time despite being in ten men for all of the second half and hitting the woodwork two minutes from the end.
In Serie A it was a good first year for Zeman’s Lazio. The team scored lots of goals, not surprising when one has Alen Boksic, Pierluigi Casiraghi and Beppe Signori in the squad. One could see that the Biancocelesti had enormous potential and if it was not for the occasional defensive blackouts, they could have done much better.
In a bit of a crisis at 5 games from the end, they won all of them taking them to second place behind Juventus.
The highlights of the season were four: a 7-1 win at home against Foggia, 8-2 win against Fiorentina, a 3-0 away win against Juventus and the 2-0 win over that other team from Rome.
Luca Marchegiani and Paolo Negro were the players with most appearances in the season and Signori the highest scorer (17 in Serie A and 21 in total).
Sadly, this was the last season at Lazio for Paul Gascoigne. He came back after the terrible injury of 1994 and played 4 matches. But Zeman’s type of game was too limiting for him so he was sold to Rangers during the summer.
Lazio 1994-95
Competition | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Goals scored |
Serie A | 34 | 19 | 6 | 9 | 69 |
Coppa Italia | 8 | 6 | - | 2 | 19 |
UEFA Cup | 8 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 10 |
Total | 50 | 30 | 8 | 12 | 98 |
Top five appearances
Player | Total | Serie A | Coppa Italia | UEFA Cup |
Marchegiani | 48 | 33 | 7 | 8 |
Negro | 48 | 32 | 8 | 8 |
Casiraghi | 47 | 34 | 6 | 7 |
Rambaudi | 46 | 32 | 7 | 7 |
Fuser | 45 | 32 | 6 | 7 |
Top Five Goal Scorers
Player | Total | Serie A | Coppa Italia | UEFA Cup |
Signori | 21 | 17 | 4 | - |
Casiraghi | 15 | 12 | 3 | - |
Boksic | 11 | 9 | - | 2 |
Negro | 8 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
Fuser | 7 | 5 | 1 | 1 |
Let talk about Marco Di Vaio
Marco Di Vaio must be on the greatest mistakes Lazio have made in their history. All of us tifosi knew that he, together with Alessandro Nesta, was destined to become one of Lazio’s most important players. He had a great potential but the Lazio management at the time was too short sighted.
Born in Rome on July 15 1976, Marco Di Vaio’s career started in the Lazio youth team and together with Nesta, Flavio Roma and others, under the management of Domenico Caso they won the Primavera tournament of 1994-95.
Dino Zoff was the first manager to believe in his abilities and he debuted with the first team on September 29 1993 in the Uefa Cup away game against Lokomotiv Plovdiv. He also took part in the Coppa Italia game against Avellino (with a result we all want to forget).
In 1994-95 he played in Serie A for the first time under Zeman and scored his first goals for Lazio. In the winter transfer window of 1995-96 he was sent to Verona on loan in Serie B. He did not play much there so for the next season he went to Bari, again on loan and again in Serie B. He played a fair amount of games but scored just 3 goals.
For Lazio this meant that he was not good enough so they sold him to Salernitana. A huge mistake. Lazio had lots of world class attackers but one must never let a “home-grown” player of this potential go.
Di Vaio stayed two years in Salerno helping the team to a historic promotion in Serie A (and was leading Serie B goal scorer with 21 goals). He then moved to Parma for three years where he won a Coppa Italia and an Italian Super Coppa.
In 2002 he signed for Juventus where he won a Scudetto and another Super Coppa before moving to Valencia. He stayed a year and a half with the Spanish team wining a UEFA Super Cup. He was then sold to Monaco in the beginning of 2006 but stayed for just a year before coming back to Italy.
He contributed to Genoa’s promotion in Serie A in 2007 before moving to Bologna in the 2008-09 season.
His four years in Bologna saw him blossom more than he had ever done before. He played 148 games for Bologna and scored 66 goals. It was not a strong team but he felt at home and was much loved by the fans. At the end of his career he went back and became club manager. He is currently sports director.
His final years of active football were with Montreal Impact in the MLS.
He played just 18 games for Lazio (8 in Serie A with 3 goals, 6 in Coppa Italia with one goal and 4 in the UEFA Cup with two goals), but he is always remembered with affection by Lazio fans who often have wondered “what if?”.
Interviewed a few years ago he was asked if there had been any possibility of him coming back to Lazio. “Once I almost came back. It was after the Valencia experience, I talked to Lotito and Sabatini. But I was earning way too much for Lazio at the time so it all fell through”.
He played 14 times for Italy and scored two goals. Di Vaio was also part of the Italian squad of Euro 2004 in Portugal. He played one game against Bulgaria in the group stage.
Lazio Career
Season | Total games (goals) | Serie A | Coppa Italia | UEFA Cup |
1993-94 | 2 | - | 1 | 1 |
1994-95 | 13 (4) | 8 (3) | 4 | 1 (1) |
Aug-Nov 1995 | 3 (2) | - | 1 (1) | 2 (1) |
Totals | 18 (6) | 8 (3) | 6 (1) | 4 (2) |
Sources