September 28, 2017: Lazio Zulte Waregem 2-0, Europa League
Two Goals in the Silence
Caicedo opens his Lazio account before Strakosha and Immobile rescue a comfortable evening from an unexpectedly nervous finish against Zulte Waregem
The season so far
The previous season Lazio had arrived fifth and qualified for the Europa League. They had also reached the final of the Coppa Italia but lost to Juve.
The summer transfer window had seen the arrivals of Adam Marusic, Felipe Caicedo, Liverpool legend Lucas Leiva and Manchester United legend Nani. Goodbye Wesley Hoedt, Lucas Biglia and Keita Balde.
The season kicked off to a good start. Lazio managed to beat Juventus 3-2 in the Italian Super Cup with a goal in the dying seconds from youngster Alessandro Murgia. Doubles from Ciro Immobile and Paolo Dybala had made the game 2-2.
In campionato Lazio were fourth just three points off third placed Inter. They had won four, including Milan 4-1, and drawn the opening game with Spal.
The match: Thursday, September 28, 2017, Stadio Olimpico, Rome
There was something deeply unnatural about the Olimpico on the evening of 28 September 2017.
The lights were on, the pitch was immaculate and Lazio were playing European football, but the stadium was silent. No Curva Nord roaring the team forward, no whistles after a misplaced pass, no eruption when a goal arrived. UEFA's punishment for the racist chanting during the previous season meant that Lazio's second Europa League group match was played behind closed doors.
It was an eerie setting for a Lazio side enjoying one of the best starts to a season in years.
Zulte Waregem had arrived in Rome having already been beaten 5–1 at home by Nice, and on paper the Belgians appeared unlikely to provide much resistance. Yet the empty stadium and Lazio's heavily rotated side produced a strange evening in which the Biancocelesti dominated for long periods but somehow managed to make a comfortable victory unnecessarily complicated.
Simone Inzaghi made several changes to his side. Ciro Immobile, Sergej Milinković-Savić and Senad Lulić began on the bench, while Felipe Caicedo was handed another opportunity to establish himself as the team's European striker. With injuries already stretching the squad, this was less a second-string Lazio than a side forced to demonstrate its growing depth.
And for the first hour, that depth looked more than sufficient.
Lazio immediately took control. The Belgians were pushed deep into their own half and struggled to cope with the movement of Luis Alberto and the energy of the wing-backs.
The breakthrough arrived after 18 minutes.
Jordan Lukaku collected the ball on the left and sent a long cross towards the far post. Adam Marušić rose above his marker and headed the ball back across the area. Caicedo had already anticipated what was coming. The Ecuadorian threw himself at the ball and directed a diving header beyond Nicola Leali.
1–0 Lazio.
It was Caicedo's first goal in a Lazio shirt.
The celebration was almost surreal. The striker had finally broken his duck, yet there was no roar from the stands to accompany the moment. Only the players themselves could celebrate the goal, their voices echoing around an Olimpico that should have been shaking beneath them.
The goal should have been the beginning of a comfortable evening.
Instead, Lazio repeatedly missed the chance to finish the job.
Alessandro Murgia went close, Marco Parolo forced a good save from Leali and Luis Alberto came close with a dangerous effort. Caicedo himself had opportunities to add a second, but the more chances Lazio wasted, the more the match remained alive.
Zulte offered almost nothing for much of the first half, although Leya Iseka came close before the interval after a Lazio mistake.
There was a feeling that Lazio were playing within themselves.
They were simply too good for their opponents, but perhaps because of that superiority they never felt the need to reach top gear.
That changed after the break.
Zulte's double substitution gave them greater ambition and suddenly Lazio began to lose control. The Belgian side pushed higher, found more space and started to test a defence which had looked almost entirely untroubled during the opening hour.
Inzaghi responded by introducing his big guns.
Immobile and Milinković-Savić came on in the 54th minute, but rather than putting the game to bed immediately, Lazio continued to waste opportunities. Luis Alberto was forced off after suffering a knock, while Caicedo missed another chance that would have ended the contest.
The longer the score remained 1–0, the more uncomfortable the evening became.
Then came the moment when Lazio needed their goalkeeper.
With 20 minutes remaining, Leya Iseka finally produced Zulte's first serious shot on target. Thomas Strakosha was equal to it, making an important save to preserve Lazio's lead.
A few minutes later the Albanian goalkeeper was called upon again, this time to deny Peter Olayinka with a close-range header.
The visitors had suddenly discovered belief.
Lazio, meanwhile, were tiring. The easy rhythm of the first hour had disappeared and the Biancocelesti were increasingly concerned with surviving rather than attacking.
It was becoming one of those European nights when a match that should have been won comfortably can suddenly turn into a disaster.
Then, in the 90th minute, came the release.
Murgia won possession and launched a counter-attack. With two forwards available, he chose Immobile on the left.
Ciro took the ball in his stride.
One touch to set himself up.
Then the finish.
He calmly placed the ball into the far corner beyond Leali.
2–0.
The goal was Immobile's 12th of the season for Lazio and his 13th overall for club and country. It was also his first attempt of the match.
This time, the silence almost made the goal more dramatic.
There was no wall of sound from the Curva, no thousands of voices celebrating Lazio's victory. Instead, the players gathered around Immobile in an empty stadium, while the significance of the goal echoed through the deserted Olimpico.
The final whistle followed shortly afterwards.
Lazio had won 2–0 and remained on maximum points in Group K, alongside Nice. It was their seventh victory in nine competitive matches from the beginning of the season.
Even when they were not at their best, even with numerous players rested or unavailable, Lazio kept winning, sitting proudly at the top of their European group.
Who played for Lazio
Strakosha, Patric, Luiz Felipe, Radu, Marusic, Parolo, Di Gennaro (54' Immobile), Murgia, Lukaku (79' Lulic), Luis Alberto (54' Milinkovic-Savic), Caicedo
Manager: S. Inzaghi
Who played for Zulte Waregem
Leali, De Fauw, Baudry (85' Saponjic), Heylen, Hamalainen, Derijck, De Pauw (46' Olayinka), Doumbia, Coopman, Leya Iseka, Kastanos (46' Kaya)
Substitutes: Bostyn, Walsh, De Mets; Jensen
Manager: Dury
Referee: Lechner
Goals: 18' Caicedo, 90' Immobile
What happened next
At the end of the first half of the season Lazio were 4th. They stayed fourth for a while and even reached 3rd at the end of February, but it lasted just one game as they lost at home against Juventus in injury time. In mid-March they slipped to fifth but again moved up to third in early April and stayed there until three games to the end of the season. The first four qualified for the Champions League. They were tied with Roma and had a four-point lead over Inter.
But with Immobile injured they drew the first game at home and Inter reduced the deficit to two points. In the penultimate game Lazio had to win against struggling Crotone but only managed to draw. So did Inter, and the final game at the Olimpico against the Nerazzurri was decisive.
With 12 minutes to go Lazio were winning 2-1, but Inter managed to score two goals in 4 minutes and Lazio had to settle for Europa League. A big blow.
In Coppa Italia the Biancocelesti were eliminated by Milan in the semi-finals on penalties and in Europa League they had reached the quarter finals but had been eliminated by Red Bull Salzburg 6-5 on aggregate.
Let’s talk about Felipe Caicedo
Felipe Caicedo played for Lazio from 2017 to 2021.
Born in 1988 in Guayaquil City on September 5 1988, he moved to Europe in 2006 at the age of 17 when he joined Basel from his hometown team Rocafuerte. Despite initially playing in the youth team, he was able to play 30 games in all competitions for the Swiss club with 9 goals.
In January 2008 he was sold to Manchester City, playing 10 games as substitute in his first half season. He played 25 games in the 2008-09 season and scored seven goals, a good performance but being physically big he needed to play more to get into a decent form so for the next two years he played on loan in three different clubs: Sporting Lisbon for six months, Malaga for the rest of 2010 and Levante in 2010-11. His spell in the Valencian club really put him the spotlight and for the next three years he played for Lokomotiv Moscow. In January 2014 he joined Al-Jazira but at the end of the season he was a free agent.
From 2014 to 2017 he was back in the Liga playing for Espanyol. For the Spanish club he played almost 100 games but only scored 19 times.
In the summer of 2017 Lazio needed a player that could come on from the bench when Ciro Immobile was tiring. Someone who would not complain if he did not play too often, but also someone likable, who could get on with the rest of the group. Igli Tare thought Caicedo was the ideal player.
His first year was not an easy one. Immobile was on fire and scored almost every match. The fans were not impressed and a missed chance in the last away match against Crotone made everybody think that the earlier he left the club, the better. Everybody except me, of course.
The fans started to appreciate Caicedo in 2018-19. Immobile was out for a number of matches due to injury and Caicedo finally had the opportunity to demonstrate his ability as a team player and also as a goal scorer. He scored an important goal in the derby against Roma and was fundamental in the dying minutes of the Coppa Italia final when a defensive clearance became an assist for Correa’s 2-0. Him coming on for an out of form Immobile was really one of the decisive moves in securing Lazio wining the trophy.
In 2019-20 we can welcome the Caicedo zone. He had already scored a decisive goal in injury time in Genoa against Sampdoria in 2017, but in the 2019-20 season it became a speciality. Injury time goals against Sassuolo, Juventus and especially Cagliari secured vital wins for Lazio. The 98th minute header against Cagliari was epic and gave the Ecuadorian Legend Status. Two more injury time goals in the 2020-21 season against Juventus and Torino allowed him to be the record man in Italian football for goals scored in injury time.
In four years, Caicedo played 105 times in Serie A (28 goals), 8 times in Coppa Italia, 20 games in Europa League with 4 goals, 5 matches in Champions League (1 goal) and one Italian Supercoppa match. He won three trophies: the Supercoppa twice and a Coppa Italia.
After having started the pre season training under Maurizio Sarri, the big Ecuadorian realised it was time to move on. He joined Genoa on the last day of the summer transfer window in the summer of 2021. Plagued by injury in the beginning of the season, he played just 9 matches before being sent to Inter on loan, where he did not leave a mark.
In 2022-23 he played for Abha Club in Saudi Arabia. In January 2025 he signed for Barcelona Sporting Club in Ecuador but his spell ended in December 2025. He retired from football in January 2026. There was also a more personal reason behind his decision. In December 2025, after the death of his Barcelona SC teammate Mario Pineida, Caicedo said that he was considering retiring and that the tragedy had made him question whether he wanted to continue playing
Felipe Caicedo was one of the most important players of the Ecuador national team. He played 68 times for his country and scored 22 goals. He quit when the Ecuadorian Federation sacked Manager Gustavo Quinteros. Caicedo participated in the Copa America 2007 and 2011 (with two goals against Brazil) as well as the 2014 World Cup
Caicedone is one of the most loved players in recent times, a fan favourite who still receives their love via social media even now his Lazio days are over.
Lazio Career
Season | Total games (goals) | Serie A | Coppa Italia | Champions League | Europa League | Super Coppa |
2017-18 | 33 (6) | 22 (3) | 2 | - | 9 (3) | - |
2018-19 | 38 (9) | 28 (8) | 5 | - | 5 (1) | - |
2019-20 | 38 (9) | 30 (9) | 1 | - | 6 | 1 |
2020-21 | 30 (9) | 25 (8) | - | 5 (1) | - | - |
Totals | 139 (33) | 105 (28) | 8 | 5 (1) | 20 (4) | 1 |
Sources
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