Over and out

Season 2024-25

Game 38, Serie A

Sunday May 25, 2025

Previous Match

Stadio Olimpico, Rome

Lazio Lecce 0-1

When the going got tough, the Lazio players disappeared. No Europe for the Biancocelesti

Comment

The table before this game read: Juventus 67 points, Roma 66, Lazio 65, Fiorentina 62. This meant that Lazio still had a chance to reach a Champions League qualification if Juve, away to Venezia who needed to win to stay in Serie A, lost and Lazio won, or a Europa League qualification if Roma, away to Torino, drew or lost and Lazio won, or a Conference League qualification if Lazio won or Fiorentina, away to Udinese, did not win.

But Lazio lost.

No Europe for the first time since the 2016-17 season.

It is pointless to talk about the match. Lazio should have got at least a point. They did not. Period.

Who is to blame?

Marco Baroni is probably the main culprit. Having majestically managed the player turnaround in the first part of the season, once fatigue and injuries came in during the second part he stuck to the same players basically burning them out. Gustav Isaksen and Mattia Zaccagni arrived at the end of the season with nothing left in the tank and despite this Baroni insisted on playing them. Nicolò Rovella and Matteo Guendouzi, heroic in their attachment to the club, were also on their knees. What was the point in signing Reda Belahyane and Arijon Ibrahimovic if the manager continued to play with the same men?

Furthermore, Baroni had been unable to solve the main problem of a 4-2-3-1 formation. If the forwards do not move back, the team only has two midfield players facing three, four and sometimes even five opponent midfielders. Occasionally he did try Fisayo Dele-Bashiru in a 4-3-2-1 formation but perhaps he should have insisted instead of only using it a few times.

Fans also blamed Claudio Lotito and sporting director Angelo Fabiani for not giving Baroni a decent side. Most of the new players did not perform as well as they could and some were really disappointing (Tijani Noslin and Loum Tchaouna for example). It is a young side, more time is probably needed.

Other players ultimately underperformed in the second part of the season and there were too many injuries. A mistake in the physical preparation?

Baroni must also explain why he decided to exclude Luca Pellegrini from the squad in the second part especially since he knew Elseid Hysaj would be out injured for more than a month.

Apart from all of this, one cannot forget the appalling refereeing which took away quite a number of points during the season. Without the referees' mistakes, the Champions League would have been easily reached.

Who played for Lazio

Mandas, Marusic (46’ Hysaj), Gila, Romagnoli, Nuno Tavares (73’ Pellegrini), Guendouzi, Rovella (76’ Vecino), Isaksen (46’ Pedro), Dia, Zaccagni (76’ Noslin), Castellanos

Substitutes: Provedel, Furlanetto, Gigot, Provstgaard, Belahyane, Dele-Bashiru, Tchaouna, Ibrahimovic

Manager: Baroni

Who played for Lecce

Falcone, Guilbert, Baschirotto, Gaspar, Gallo; Ramadani (73' Veiga), Berisha (60' Kaba), Coulibaly; Pierotti, Krstovic (88' Burnete), Karlsson (60' Helgason)

Substitutes: Fruchtl, Samooja, Rebic, Rafia, N`Dri, Sansone, Banda, Tiago Gabriel, Pierret, Sala

Manager: Giampaolo

Referee: Fabbri

Goal: 43’ Coulibaly

Booked: Guendouzi (L), Pierotti (Le), Gila (L)

Red card: Pierotti (Le), Rebic (Le, from the bench), Romagnoli (L)