Maurizio Sarri had wrestled all week with the question of whether to start Sergej Milinkovic-Savic against Salernitana. His Lazio team were soaring, up to third in Serie A and boasting the best defensive record in the division. A 2-0 win over the previously undefeated Atalanta, richly deserved despite the absence of top scorer Ciro Immobile, had put the manager back in the spotlight, the national media celebrating a rebirth of “Sarrismo” – Sarri-ism, often translated as Sarri-ball.
The manager was unaffected. In one interview he defended his enduring preference for wearing tracksuits, describing it as “the most natural thing in the world” to dress appropriately for your workplace and ridiculing under-19 coaches who wore jackets and trousers. In another he was asked to define Sarrismo. “I wouldn’t know what to call it,” he said. “Maybe my wife is the one who knows best how to define me: a grumpy man and a bit of a dickhead.”
Perhaps so, but Sarri was showing himself once again to be an extremely effective manager. A Lazio side which conceded 58 goals last season and lost starting centre-back Francesco Acerbi to Internazionale late in the summer transfer window now boasted the tightest defence in Serie A. The aggregate score for their last six league games was 16-0.
Sunday’s match against Salernitana, however, presented a conundrum. Milinkovic-Savic had been booked in the final moments of the win over Atalanta, meaning he was now just one yellow card from a suspension. The next game after this one was the derby against Roma.
Sarri: “Sometimes I go to watch U19 games on shocking pitches and I burst out laughing when I see coaches in club suits. We work on the pitch, so I wear a tracksuit. When I worked in finance I’d turn up suited and booted. Wearing a tracksuit seems perfectly normal to me” pic.twitter.com/QAhSi7rBic
— Patrick Kendrick (@patrickendrick) October 30, 2022
To play without Milinkovic-Savic would be a big risk. Immobile was still out with a hamstring injury. Could Lazio afford to face a competitive Salernitana side without two of their most important players? Sarri decided they must. He weighed not only the booking but also fatigue. Milinkovic-Savic, who had started every domestic game so far, played a full 90 minutes against FC Midtjylland in the Europa League on Thursday night.
By half-time it looked as though the gamble was paying off. Sarri swapped his usual 4-3-3 for a 4-4-2 with Pedro and Mattia Zaccagni playing as a tandem of false nines. After a cautious opening, Lazio gradually started to take control of the game, with the first of those two players hitting the post shortly before the second put them in front in the 41st minute.
The Biancocelesti ought to have doubled their lead after the interval when Felipe Anderson headed the ball down for Matías Vecino, who failed to beat the keeper from point-blank range. Instead, they were pegged back in the 50th minute by a beautifully taken goal from their former player, Antonio Candreva.
It was a move straight off the training ground. Salernitana’s manager, Davide Nicola, had moved Candreva in from his usual spot at wing-back in a 3-5-2 to play on the right-hand side of the midfield three instead. From there he found the space between Lazio’s defenders, receiving a floated pass from his outside replacement, Pasquale Mazzocchi, taming it with one touch and chipping the keeper with the next. “We did what we prepared during the week,” said Nicola afterwards. “The goal that Candreva scored on Mazzocchi’s ball forward was a solution we tried on Friday in practice.”
This was the first league goal Lazio had conceded in more than 600 minutes, and they did not respond well. Sarri summoned Milinkovic-Savic from the bench to fix things. Yet the Serbian was powerless to stop a former Roma player, Federico Fazio, from scoring at the back post a few minutes later after Lazio failed to clear a cross.
Worse was yet to come. In the 72nd minute, Milinkovic-Savic was attacking the Salernitana box with the ball when Dylan Bronn stepped out to challenge him. The Lazio player offloaded possession at the last second before they collided. Milinkovic-Savic’s boot landed on top of Bronn’s. On slow-motion replays it looked painful, but in real-time it was hard to see what else the Lazio player was supposed to do. He had full possession before Bronn lunged in. The Salernitana player was a fraction late and never touched the ball but happened to place his boot right where his opponent’s studs were headed.
The referee, Gianluca Manganiello, had no hesitation in showing Milinkovic-Savic a yellow card. Lazio’s players, aware of the consequences for next week’s derby, immediately went to pieces. Amid furious protests they allowed Salernitana to score again, Domagoj Bradaric picking out Boulaye Dia for a close-range finish despite their being three Lazio defenders and nobody else to threaten them inside the box.
By full-time of a 3-1 defeat, Sarri was a blend of rage and remorse. He claimed not to have seen a decision like the one against Milinkovic-Savic in half a century of involvement in football and hinted at dark conspiracies, pointing out that the same referee had booked Zaccagni, leading to a suspension, right before Lazio played Roma this March. Sarri asserted that: “If I say what I think about the referee they will ban me for six months.”
Yet he also suggested it had been a mistake not simply to field Milinkovic-Savic from the start. Points won against Salernitana would have counted just as much for the standings as any taken off Roma. “When you want to try to manage these situations [with suspensions] you always end up with a mess,” he said. “I’ve rarely made choices of this sort, but the derby gets into your head a bit. Thinking back, I would act differently.”
Absolutely sublime 💫
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) October 30, 2022
Salernitana have been unlocked by a beautiful through ball by Luis Alberto that has the Stadio Olympico on their feet 👏
Wonderful pass! pic.twitter.com/1u2Uk7QhR5
The other side of this setback for Lazio, however, was a famous win for Salernitana. Last December they stood on the verge of being tossed out of the league because their then owner, Claudio Lotito, also happens to own Lazio. He had gained one exemption after another to maintain control of both clubs but eventually ran out of rope.
His relationship with Salernitana is complicated. He rescued them from bankruptcy in 2011 and brought them all the way up from Serie D to the top flight in the decade that followed. Yet Lotito was accused of dumping unsuccessful Lazio players into the club and disrespecting its history.
Torino 2-1 Milan, Lazio 1-3 Salernitana, Spezia 1-2 Fiorentina, Cremonese 0-0 Udinese, Empoli 0-2 Atalanta, Internazionale 3-0 Sampdoria, Lecce 0-1 Juventus, Napoli 4-0 Sassuolo
Monday: Verona v Roma, Monza v Bologna
One particular phrase has never been forgotten, Lotito responding to critics by asserting that the Salernitana would be “playing in Serie Z if it wasn’t for me, without so much as a rocking horse”. It was a riff on the seahorse which adorns the club’s badge. Little wonder that local newspaper La Città should run with a front-page headline on Monday celebrating “revenge” over their former owner.
Nicola will be less interested in any such discussions than the steady improvement of the side he rescued from relegation last season. This was a third win in four matches for Salernitana, lifting them into the top half of the table.
The sight of Franck Ribéry, recently retired from playing and now a part of his coaching staff, enthusiastically dispensing instructions from the sidelines as Lazio fell apart felt like another sign of this club’s growing ambition. Sarrismo, despite Sunday’s setback, remains a force to be reckoned with in Italian football. But could the unlikely alliance of a Champions League winner and Serie A’s great escape artist produce further surprises down on the Amalfi coast?
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Napoli | 12 | 21 | 32 |
| 2 | Atalanta | 12 | 10 | 27 |
| 3 | AC Milan | 12 | 12 | 26 |
| 4 | Lazio | 12 | 16 | 24 |
| 5 | Inter Milan | 12 | 8 | 24 |
| 6 | Roma | 11 | 3 | 22 |
| 7 | Juventus | 12 | 11 | 22 |
| 8 | Udinese | 12 | 8 | 22 |
| 9 | Torino | 12 | -2 | 17 |
| 10 | Salernitana | 12 | -1 | 16 |
| 11 | Sassuolo | 12 | -3 | 15 |
| 12 | Fiorentina | 12 | -4 | 13 |
| 13 | Empoli | 12 | -8 | 11 |
| 14 | Bologna | 11 | -5 | 10 |
| 15 | Monza | 11 | -9 | 10 |
| 16 | Spezia | 12 | -12 | 9 |
| 17 | Lecce | 12 | -6 | 8 |
| 18 | Sampdoria | 12 | -15 | 6 |
| 19 | Verona | 11 | -11 | 5 |
| 20 | Cremonese | 12 | -13 | 5 |
