For 48 minutes, those between Felipe Anderson’s goals and Lautaro Martinez’s, Lazio had a foot and a half in the Champions League. Everything then turned upside down, the first match-point failed. Not everything to be redone, God forbid, but a lot to analyze. Sarri is right: at the beginning of the season everyone would have signed to find themselves with this ranking with six rounds to go, but in 180 minutes the advantage over the Champions area was halved. The team’s performance is not particularly alarming but the four goals conceded in two games, the unexpected compliance denounced by the coach and some big players down in tone are at the top of the reflections of Sarri who knows that now he will also and above all have to be a psychologist.
Now necessary rotations
For the first time this season, the Biancocelesti have collected two consecutive knockouts in the league. To tell the truth, it had already happened between the last day before the long break for the World Cup and the first after the second half, but in between there were 50 days off and it’s not the same thing. How will the team react? Psychologist yes but, as he says, also mechanical: he talks about engine capacity, certainly mental, but also technical. And so the usual theme of the depth of the rose becomes topical again. Thanks to the bench, Inter transformed the game, Lazio’s substitutions on the other hand…they don’t change. That’s why Sarri uses them very little: the same 14 have always played in the league, but now with three games in six days rotations will be necessary. Someone is forced: Romagnoli is disqualified and Cataldi almost out, it will be up to Patric and Vecino. Lazzari and Pedro’s entries from the beginning are also possible: Sarri must change, with the hope that the current ranking will not change.