Maurizio Sarri was not trying to send a message. His decision to leave Luis Alberto out of Lazio’s starting XI to face Inter on Friday was simply a choice to trust Matías Vecino to run the left side of his midfield. The Uruguayan arrived in Rome this summer, but he and Sarri go a long way back having worked together at Empoli in 2014-15.
Plenty has changed since then, but Vecino’s strengths remain the same: robust physicality, positional discipline and a willingness to play vertically: using straightforward directness to help his team break the lines. His gifts are less eye-catching than Alberto’s but tactically he is a useful piece of the puzzle.
