September 22, 1999: Lazio Dynamo Kiev 2-1, Champions League
- Lazio Stories
- Sep 22
- 10 min read
Lazio win despite referee
Biancocelesti come back from behind to beat Dynamo Kiev after a ridiculous penalty awarded to the Ukrainians
Also on this day:
The season so far
In the previous season Lazio had gone agonisingly close to winning the scudetto. With eight games to the end of the season they were leading with five points over Fiorentina and seven over Milan. But a single point in the next three games reduced the cushion over Milan to just one point. Lazio then won three consecutive games but so did Milan. In the penultimate match in Florence, the Biancocelesti were held to a draw and denied a clear penalty by a distracted referee. Milan won, overtook them, and maintained the lead in the last game.
In the summer transfer window, Lazio surprisingly sold their centre forward Christian Vieri to Inter in exchange for 90 billion lire (45 million euros) plus Diego Simeone. Other signings were Juan Sebastian Veron and Nestor Sensini from Parma, Simone Inzaghi from Piacenza and Kenneth Andersson from Bologna.
The 1999-00 season opened with the victory against the mighty Manchester United in Monte Carlo for the UEFA Super Cup with a Marcelo Salas goal. Another European triumph after having won the last ever Cup Winners Cup the previous year in Birmingham against Real Mallorca.
The Biancocelesti had played three Serie A games so far, winning their first against Cagliari which was followed by a draw at Bari and a win at home against Torino.
In Champions League they were in a group with Bayer Leverkusen, Dynamo Kiev and NK Maribor. They had drawn their first game in Germany a week earlier.
The match: Wednesday, September 22, 1999, Lazio Dynamo Kiev 2-1
Lazio attacked in the first half and in the 16th minute there was a free kick 25 metres out. Sinisa Mihajlovic on the ball. Repeat of last week at Leverkusen? Almost. His curling shot was palmed onto the crossbar by the keeper. Five minutes later Pavel Nedved shaved the post with a shot from very far out.
Around the half hour after a Mihajlovic corner kick an Alen Boksic header went wide with Oleksandr Shovkovski caught in no man’s land. Immediately after, a cross from Juan Sebastian Veron found Roberto Mancini alone in the box but instead of controlling the ball, he headed it to the upcoming Nevded who tried a shot which went too high. In the 40th minute Nedved tried again from the left, great save from the keeper who managed to get a hand to it and deflect into corner. But neither ref nor the linesman saw the keeper's touch. Manuel Diaz Vega was starting to get on everybody’s nerves. Towards the end of the first half a dangerous freekick taken by Kakha Kaladze was well saved into corner by Marco Ballotta.
In the 47th minute Mancini crossed for Boksic who tried a header but Shovkovski parried into corner. 120 seconds later Nedved crossed from left, the keeper went for the catch but fumbled, Boksic tried a bicycle kick which became an assist for Dejan Stankovic. Open goal, but his volley hit the woodwork and went out.
In the 51st minute out went Stankovic and in came Marcelo Salas. Lazio continued to press but their attacks were fuelled more by fury than thought. In the 67th minute Mancini tried a shot but it was well saved by the keeper. Immediately after Serhij Rebrov to Serhij Konovalov who easily passed Beppe Favalli and in front of Ballotta was anticipated by Mihajlovic in a sliding tackle. Sinisa clearly got the ball but the ref indicated a penalty much to the bewilderment of everybody else on the pitch and in the stands. No VAR in those times, Rebrov took the spotkick and it was 1-0 for the visitors.
Lazio camped themselves in the Dynamo half and in three minutes had three corners. On the third, in the 72nd minute, the ball was cleared but Nedved crossed in the box again. It was a very high ball, Paolo Negro went for the header, perfectly angled, 1-1.
Three minutes later Boksic went for the cross on the left, Shovkovski put a hand to the ball which then travelled to the right, Salas controlled it with his chest and volleyed it in for Lazio’s deserved lead. A wonderful goal.
Nothing much happened as Lazio closed all the spaces and Dynamo did not have the strength to come back. Fundamental win for the Biancocelesti.
Who played for Lazio
Ballotta, Negro, Nesta, Mihajlovic, Favalli, Stankovic (51’ Salas), Veron (81’ Lombardo), Almeyda, Nedved, Boksic, Mancini (75’ Simeone)
Manager: Eriksson
Who played for Dynamo Kyiv
Shovkovski, Fedorov, Vaschuk, Golovko, Dmytrulin, Gerasimenko (46' Konovalov), Kormiltsev (46' Kosovsky), Gusin, Kaladze, Shatskikh (82' Vehlinski), Rebrov
Substitutes: Kernozenko, Yezerski, Mamedov, Radchenko
Manager: Lobanovsky
Referee: Diaz Vega
Goals: 68’ Rebrov (pen), 72’ Negro, 75’ Salas
What happened next
Lazio won their group thanks to four wins against the Ukrainians and Slovenians plus two draws against the Germans. The second part of the Champions League was another group phase, this time against Chelsea, Olympique Marseille and Feyenoord.
Qualification for the quarterfinal was put in peril by only getting one point against the Dutch, after beating the French twice. In the final game against Chelsea, after having drawn at home, Lazio had to win at Stamford Bridge to clinch the qualification in first place (the top two teams went through) as a bonus, so they could avoid having to play the quarter final against Barcelona, Manchester United or Bayern. They managed to do so, coming from behind in a spectacular game. In the quarterfinals Lazio played against Valencia. Everybody thought that it would be an easy match, but Lazio collapsed in Spain. Without Luca Marchegiani and Alessandro Nesta, Lazio went 2-0 down after four minutes, re-opened the game thanks to an Inzaghi goal half way through the first half, but Valencia netted another two goals and with ten minutes to the end were leading 4-1. Salas scored in the dying minutes to give Lazio a chance of qualification but another defensive blunder with just a few seconds to go, gave Valencia a three-goal lead. Fans were hopeful Lazio could recover at the Olimpico, but the Biancocelesti only scored one goal with Veron and went out of the Champions League. A real pity.
Lazio, like many of the big teams, started the Coppa Italia in the fourth-round games and had to play against Reggiana, who had won their group in August. Lazio, with a few Primavera players in the starting eleven, plus more on the bench, had drawn the first leg away 1-1 (Alen Boksic the scorer for the Biancocelesti) and won the return match 4-1 at home thanks to a Sinisa Mihajlovic free kick double and goals by Simone Inzaghi and Boksic.
The quarter finals were much more difficult as Lazio had to face Juventus. At the end of the first half in Turin the Biancocelesti were losing 3-0 and were virtually out of the competition. But in the second half first a penalty scored by Fabrizio Ravanelli and then a goal by Roberto Mancini with ten minutes to go re-opened the contest. In the return match at the Olimpico Lazio scored in the second half with Boksic. Alessandro Del Piero equalised but Diego Simeone put Lazio ahead in the 81st minute and the Biancocelesti were able to hold onto the precious victory.
Whereas on the one side there were two big clashes in the quarter finals (Lazio vs Juve and the Milanese derby), the other two games should have been more one-sided: Cagliari-Roma and Fiorentina-Venezia. But the islanders eliminated the Giallorossi and an away goal by Venezia gave them a historic semi-final against Lazio.
In the first leg, Lazio destroyed Venezia 5-0 with doubles from Mancini and Mihajlovic (with two penalties) plus a Ravanelli goal. Silver Fox had also missed a penalty. The return was just a formality and Lazio drew 2-2 with an Inzaghi double.
Inter brushed off Cagliari and so met Lazio in the final. The first leg was in Rome on April 12. Inter scored immediately with Clarence Seedorf but Lazio managed to equalise with Pavel Nedved at the end of the first half. In the beginning of the second, Simeone put Lazio ahead so Marcelo Lippi put Ronaldo on the pitch, his first game in five months. Five minutes later the Brazilian broke his patellar tendon. The scene was dramatic and very sad. The game basically ended there.
In the campionato the Biancocelesti started well and by the sixth game they took the solitary lead. Juventus caught up with Lazio in the 10th game after the Biancocelesti lost the derby. A trio of teams (Lazio, Roma and Juve) then led the Serie A for a few matches until Lazio sprinted off in the 14th. It did not last long. A loss on a frozen Venice evening on January 5 gave Juventus the lead again. Roma had fallen behind. Lazio regained the top of the table after beating Bologna in the Centenary game, but two goalless draws in the next two games gave Juve a three-point lead. By the 26th game the deficit increased to nine points and it looked as if it was all over for the scudetto. But on March 25 Lazio won the derby and Juve lost at Milan. The Biancocelesti were at -6 but the next match was in Turin against Juventus. Thanks to a goal from Diego Simeone, the Juventus lead was reduced to three points. However, Florence looked as if it would be fatal again as Lazio drew 3-3 and Juventus won in Milan against Inter.
There were four games to go. Everybody thought it was all over but manager Sven Goran Eriksson tried to get the team to believe in the impossible. In the 32nd game of the season Lazio beat Venezia and Juventus lost at Verona. Two games to go, two points difference. Lazio beat Bologna away and Juventus were winning 1-0 against Parma. Towards the end of the match there was a corner for Parma. Mario Amoroso crossed and Fabio Cannavaro equalised but the referee inexplicably disallowed it.
This was the talking point in Italy for the entire week. Juve had already won a controversial scudetto a couple of years back when a clear penalty on Ronaldo was not given to Inter in Turin. So, there was massive media pressure on the last two games of the season: Lazio-Reggina and Perugia-Juventus.
Perugia President Luciano Gaucci, ashamed of the lack of fighting spirit his team had shown against Milan in the last game of the previous season, stated that it would not be a walkover for Juventus. Lazio fans hoped in a draw and then to go to a playoff. And this is what was happening at the end of the first half. Lazio were winning 2-0 and it was still goalless in Perugia. But a massive storm had erupted over the Umbrian capital and the pitch was waterlogged. Referee Pierluigi Collina tried a number of times to see if the ball would bounce on the waterlogged pitch, but no. There was a problem. If the game had been abandoned they would have to start from scratch the next day. With what had happened in the previous match when Cannavaro’s goal was disallowed for no reason at all, the Italian referee felt that the repetition of the game would have been unfair. So he insisted. When they were about to give up, the rain stopped. The pitch was not in ideal condition, but playable. The second half could recommence, an hour later than it should have. In the 50th minute Alessandro Calori scored for Perugia. Juve did not manage to equalise and Lazio won their second scudetto.
Still smelling of champagne and without any training whatsoever since the Sunday match, Lazio faced Inter for the second leg of the Coppa Italia final. There were chances for both sides, particularly for Inter in the dying seconds of the match, when Alvaro Recoba hit the woodwork, but the game ended goalless and the Biancocelesti won the double.
An amazing season.
Let’s talk about Paolo Negro
Paolo Negro was born in Arzignano (Brescia), on 16 April, 1972.
Negro was a strong, physical defender who also excelled in the air. He had good pace when moving forward and despite his role was often on the score sheet.
He was a product of the Brescia youth sector but his senior career started at Bologna, where he spent 2 years before returning to his local club Brescia. A year later, in 1993, he was bought by Lazio where he spent the next 12 years. Negro arrived amid some scepticism from Lazio fans and local media. He did take a while settling in but over the following decade established himself as an excellent defender pairing up well both with Nesta and Sinisa Mihajlovic in the centre and also as an all-round full back.
He played 376 games for Lazio (264 in Serie A, 47 in Coppa Italia, 23 in Champions League, 3 in the Cup Winners Cup, 37 in the UEFA Cup, one UEFA Super Cup final and one Supercoppa final) scoring 24 goals (19 in Serie A, 3 in Coppa Italia, one in Champions League and one in the UEFA Cup). He played under Zdenek Zeman, Dino Zoff and Sven Goran Eriksson amongst others. He won 8 trophies with Lazio including the “Scudetto” in 2000 and the European Super Cup in 1999 against Manchester United.
Negro will always be remembered on both sides of the Tiber due to his unfortunate own goal in the 2001 derby loss to Roma. He was then assiduously mocked for years by the “Giallorossi” fans but in all fairness, it was probably Nesta who was more at fault for the blunder.
Negro did however get his revenge years later when playing for Siena, where he played for two years after leaving Lazio, between 2005 and 2007. Negro's payback moment came when he scored for Siena against Roma at the Olimpico in a shock 3-2 away victory, with all three goals coming from former Lazio players (Negro, Enrico Chiesa and Francesco Colonnese). It was no more "Paolo Negro gol" chants from taunting Roma fans.
At International level he won 8 caps for the 'Azzurri' national team and 10 for the Under 21s. He played a major role in Italy's runner-up medal at the 2000 European Championships.
Paolo Negro will always be remembered fondly at Lazio for his quiet, unassuming, yet jovial character and especially for his key role in the glory years.
Lazio career
Season | Total games (goals) | Serie A | Coppa Italia | Champions League | Cup Winners Cup | UEFA Cup | UEFA Super Cup | Super Coppa |
1993-94 | 26 (1) | 23 (1) | 1 | - | - | 2 | - | - |
1994-95 | 48 (8) | 32 (4) | 8 (3) | - | - | 8 (1) | - | - |
1995-96 | 39 (1) | 31 (1) | 4 | - | - | 4 | - | - |
1996-97 | 34 (3) | 27 (3) | 3 | - | - | 4 | - | - |
1997-98 | 47 (2) | 28 (2) | 10 | - | - | 9 | - | - |
1998-99 | 28 (3) | 21 (3) | 4 | - | 3 | - | - | |
1999-00 | 42 (3) | 26 (2) | 5 | 10 (1) | - | - | 1 | - |
2000-01 | 32 (1) | 24 (1) | 3 | 5 | - | - | - | - |
2001-02 | 25 (1) | 16 (1) | 4 | 5 | - | - | - | - |
2002-03 | 28 (1) | 19 (1) | 3 | - | - | 6 | - | - |
2003-04 | 18 | 13 | 2 | 3 | - | - | - | - |
2004-05 | 10 | 4 | 1 | - | - | 4 | - | 1 |
Total | 377 (24) | 264 (19) | 48 (3) | 23(1) | 3 | 37 (1) | 1 | 1 |
Sources
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