Luis Alberto Romero Alconchel is probably one of the most talented players ever to play for Lazio. A difficult player to manage though. He needs a lot of mental help to maximise his enormous potential.
Born in San Josè del Valle on September 28, 1992, “Il Mago” (The Magician), as he is known in Italy, spent most of his youth career in Seville. In 2009 he started playing for Sevilla Atletico, the reserve team of Sevilla, in the Second Division of the Liga. In 2010 he went back to the A team but did not play much. After two years the club sent him to play with the Barcelona B team on loan where he did pretty well and he was “discovered” by Liverpool. He moved to Anfield in 2013 but again played very little. In 2014 he was sent on loan to Malaga and a year later to Deportivo La Coruna.
His career change came in 2016 when Lazio signed him from Liverpool. Initially the idea was that he was going to substitute Antonio Candreva who had been sold to Inter. However, unlike the former Lazio captain, Luis Alberto was not a winger and had difficulty adapting, and not just to the new way of playing but in general.
The change came in a match against Genoa on April 15 2017. Lazio were trailing 2-1 and Luis Alberto was thrown in ten minutes to the end in a desperate attempt to equalise. He scored his first goal for Lazio 11 minutes later and literally became another player. He played a couple of times towards the end of the season showing that he really could really play football if given the chance.
And the chance came at the beginning of the following season. Felipe Anderson was designated to be Ciro Immobile’s attacking partner but got injured during pre-season training. Luis Alberto was chosen as his replacement in the Super Coppa final against Juventus. He played well, Lazio won and the Spaniard went on to play 47 games, score 12 goals and provide 14 assists during the season. His next season was not so good but he was still one of the most important players capable of doing anything with the ball and he helped Lazio win the Coppa Italia.
Lazio became a strong contender for the Scudetto in 2019-20 but the Covid shutdown had negative effects on the team and the Biancocelesti struggled once the Serie A returned from lockdown. He however helped Lazio win the Supercoppa and finally reach a Champions League qualification.
In order to demonstrate his one good year - one not so good pattern, he was very inconsistent in 2020-21 and rumours of him wanting to return to Sevilla started being a recurrent in the Italian media, also because his beloved manager Simone Inzaghi left Lazio. Maurizio Sarri, the new manager, confirmed Luis Alberto’s wish to go back to Spain but no decent offer arrived.
After struggling a bit with the new playing philosophy, Luis Alberto found consistency and a regular place on the team. In some matches, especially the more physical ones, Sarri left him on the bench since the three-man midfield made up of the Spaniard, a not so young Lucas Leiva and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic was not really ideal when one has to run around the opponents. But, despite fake rumours in the Roman media about arguments between manager and player, Sarri has alway spoken very highly of Luis Alberto. “A very intelligent player”, he says of him.
Between the 2016-17 season and 2022-23, Luis Alberto played 263 games for Lazio (209 in Serie A, 13 in Coppa Italia, 6 in Champions League, 30 in Europa League, 3 in Conference League and two Super Coppa finals) and has scored 47 goals (42 in Serie A, 1 in Coppa Italia, 3 in Europa League and 1 in Super Coppa). He was won three trophies: a Coppa Italia in 2018-2019 and two Super Coppas (2017 and 2019).
He has not had much luck with the Spain national team, having only played once for his country. Luis Alberto has been consistently and mysteriously ignored by the various Spanish managers, even though he would thoroughly deserve to be part of the La Furia Roja.
Lazio Career (updated April 3, 2024)
Season | Total played (Goals) | Serie A | Coppa Italia | Champions League | Europa League | Conference League | Super Coppa |
2016-17 | 10 (1) | 9 (1) | 1 | - | - | | - |
2017-18 | 47 (12) | 34 (11) | 3 | - | 9 (1) | | 1 |
2018-19 | 37 (6) | 27 (4) | 5 (1) | - | 5 (1) | | - |
2019-20 | 41 (7) | 36 (6) | - | - | 4 | | 1 (1) |
2020-21 | 40 (9) | 34 (9) | - | 6 | - | | - |
2021-22 | 44 (5) | 34 (5) | 2 | - | 8 | | - |
2022-23 | 44 (7) | 35 (6) | 2 | - | 4 (1) | 3 | - |
2023-24 | 37 (4) | 27 (4) | 1 | 8 | - | - | 1 |
Total | 300 (51) | 236 (46) | 14 (1) | 14 | 30 (3) | 3 | 3 (1) |
Sources