Lazio and the A1 motorway: what a mess

Again, Lazio yesterday afternoon was a tactical chaos where confusion reigned and ideas were poor. Revolutionary true, but poor. Edy Reja (who was later sent off by the referee for the second time in 2 matches) decided to field a 5-2-3 formation trying to surprise his Samp counterpart, Gigi Delneri. But it was clear from the beginning that that formation was basically too unbalanced: too many defenders and too many strikers. Besides, Lazio pass-and-move game started to increase when they were reduced to ten men. It seems like they always need for some misfortune to react. Just like what happened in October against Villarreal: Matuzalem was sent off and Lazio rescued to victory with a daring 3-4-2 formation. But in Genoa this didn’t happen.
Yesterday Mauro Zarate was sent off for shouting abuse in the face of the referee Brighi, after the latter didn’t concede him a free-kick. His reaction clearly mirrors a very tense and anxious moment at Lazio. “When we play, we always fear defeat”, Rocchi told to Sky Sports after the match. Zarate rallied out of the pitch in tears and was later “impossible to cheer up while in the dressing-room”, Rocchi explained. The guy from Haedo later spent the night in Milan with his brother Sergio (who is also his agent) and some friends. Today he is expected to fly to Madrid, his favourite city when it comes to recover from harsh times. What’s bad is that Lazio now will be without him for the game against Bari at home and almost certainly he’ll also miss the away match in Cagliari. Also Tommaso Rocchi faces the risk of suspension after TV cameras caught him on blasphemy. Few striking options in the next games for the second worst Serie A attack.

THAT MOTORWAY IS PURE FAR WEST…
Praise to the almost 2,000 Lazio fans who made the trip up north. They made themselves heard throughout all the 90 minutes, displaying a classy performance. Before the match, 20 Lazio ultras clashed against 40 Sampdoria’s. Both set of fans threw missiles (mainly stones) and had a fight with sticks. The clash lasted for 5 minutes before police arrived and ceased the animosity. Almost every fan reported injuries and one of the Rome’s supporters was immediately treated by the Red Cross services at Stadio Luigi Ferraris for a head-injury.
As that wasn’t enough, later on the A1 motorway a set of 50 Perugia ultras waited in a motorway café (Chianti Ovest). They were coming back from the away match at Pergocrema (Italian third tier) and attacked Lazio fans (even women and kids) coming back from Genoa, with sticks and belts. All this could have been avoided if Lazio fans all travelled back together from the Sampdoria match. In this, they are lacking organization.

HOW THEY RATED – Here’s the evaluation of both Sampdoria and Lazio players in the Gazzetta dello Sport and Corriere della Sera journalists’ opinions:
MUSLERA – 6 (Gazzetta) – 6 (Corriere)
DIAKITÈ – 5 - 5
SIVIGLIA – 6 - 5
STENDARDO – 6 - 6
RADU – 6 - 6
KOLAROV – 5,5 - 5
BROCCHI – 6,5 - 6
LEDESMA – 5,5 – 5,5
ROCCHI – 5 - 5
FLOCCARI 7 – 6,5
ZARATE – 5 - 4
MAKINWA – 5 - 5
MATUZALEM – 6 - 6
REJA – 5 – 4

SAMPDORIA Star man: Guberti – 7

LAZIO STATS – Genoa-owned Sergio Floccari yesterday scored his fourth goal in a Lazio shirt. Besides, that was also his fourth goal scored against Sampdoria (the team to he scored most times in his career).

Lazio won just one out of their last 9 games: 2-0 at Parma. They then collected 4 draws (all 1-1 scores) and 4 defeats in the remaining 8 fixtures.

Mauro Zarate (75 games played for Lazio) was sent off for the first time in Italy. That was the fifth red card of the season for Lazio.

Cristian Ledesma played his 200th game in Serie A yesterday.