Ready for Champions League

Simon Basten
Jul 27, 2023
2 min read

Season 2007-08

Pre Season Friendly

Saturday, July 28, 2007

St. Mary’s Stadium, Southampton

Southampton Lazio 2-5

Lazio play a perfect match and score five in Southampton

Lazio were in preseason training at Kapfenburg in Austria. They had played six games so far and won five including the friendly with West Ham United. Today they were to play in Southampton for the Ted Bates Trophy.

The match

Lazio are ready for the Champions League. This was the verdict after the spectacular game against Southampton in the UK. After 15 minutes it was already 3-0 for the Biancocelesti. Goran Pandev scored in the 3rd minute with a splendid freekick, 120 seconds later Stefano Mauri exploited a terrible mistake by the hosts and in the 15th minute Tommaso Rocchi made it three with a powerful shot.

At this point the referee, Paul Taylor took pity and gave a very generous penalty to the hosts which was scored by Kenwyne Jones but a minute later Mauri re-established the three-goal lead tapping in the ball after a splendid lob from Pandev which probably would have gone in anyway.

In the second half Lazio took a breather so in the 54th minute the ref gave Southampton another generous penalty this time scored by Grzegorz Rasiak. In the 63rd minute a splendid Pandev-Rocchi one-two allowed the Lazio centre forward to make it five.

The attacking duo could have scored numerous more times but they did not want to overdo it. “A perfect match” said manager Delio Rossi at the end of the game.

Who played for Southampton

Bialkowski, Ostlund, Pelé, Powell (46' Makin), Vignal, Surman, Wright, Hammill (46' Licka), Skacel (69' Dyer), Jones (54' Rasiak), Saganowski (76' Wright-Phillips)

Substitutes: Viafara, James, Lallana, Poke

Manager: Burley

Who played for Lazio

Ballotta (88' Berni), Scaloni (46’ De Silvestri, 54’ Belleri), Cribari (81’ Diakité), Stendardo, Zauri (75’ Kolarov), Behrami (72’ Firmani), Ledesma (85’ Baronio), Mutarelli (72’ Manfredini), Pandev (65’ Makinwa), Mauri, Rocchi (79’ Del Nero)