Easy win
An easy afternoon for Lazio who win against a very weak Fiumana
Also on this day:
The season so far
The previous season had been awful. They came 10th in the National Division and were initially relegated to the First Division but a change in plan led to the creation of two divisions for the 1928-29 league. The top eight of each would play the first Serie A in 1929-30.
There were a lot of new signings: Aldo Spivach (Udinese), Silvio Griggio (Vicenza) and Aroldo Vaccari (Modena) to reinforce the attack, Francesco Rier (Modena) Giuseppe Valenti (Viterbese), Carlo Radice (Virtus Goliarda) and Marino Frulani (Pro Gorizia) for the midfield. Renato Sanero went back to Juventus after a year long loan and Camillo Fenilli was sold to Napoli. Manager Franz Sedlacek was confirmed.
Lazio’s first three games were all losses: 6-2 against Bologna away, 1-0 home to Brescia and 4-2 at Cremona. Sedlacek was sacked and in came former Lazio legend Fernando Saraceni. He did bring an improvement. In the next six games the Biancocelesti won 3, drew 1 and lost 2 so were now on 7 points. Eighth place was only two points away.
Fiumana was the team from Fiume, modern day Rijeka, which at that time was part of Italy. The 1928-29 championship was the only time Fiumana participated in a first-tier league.
The match: Sunday, December 16, 1928, Campo Rondinella, Rome
Lazio dominated right from the start and in the 33rd minute scored their first goal. Long pass from Marino Furlani to Gino Lamon who managed to anticipate both defenders plus the goalkeeper and score. In the 45th minute Odoacre Pardini with a big whack from outside the box made it two for the Biancocelesti.
In the second half Lazio could have scored more but they hit the woodwork twice and the referee ignored a blatant foul on Pardini as he was about to score his brace in the 57th minute.
Good win for Lazio, Fiumana way too weak to create anything even close to being dangerous.
Who played for Lazio
Manager: Saraceni I
Who played for Fiumana
Marietti, Milinovich, Greiner, Narciso, Musiol, Pasquali, Froglia, Serdoz, Zulini, Mihalich, Host
Referee: Giulini
Goals: 33’ Lamon, 45’ Pardini
What happened next
After the bad start Lazio gradually started to play well and accumulate points. At the end of the first 15 games the Biancocelesti had won three, drawn two and lost all the others. In came new manager Augusto Rangone. In the next 8 games Lazio won three and lost the others so Ferenc Molnar was appointed new manager. The Hungarian made a difference and Lazio were able to win 4 matches out of 6. The final game of the season was a decider against Napoli who had the same points as Lazio. Eighth position would have meant Serie A for the following year. But the match was a goalless draw so both teams were forced to go to a playoff.
On June 23 1929 at the Stadio San Siro in Milan, Lazio and Napoli played to death but there was no winner. The match ended 2-2. A second playoff was scheduled for June 30 at Padova but it was postponed.
At this point politics took control. Serie A needed to have both Napoli and Triestina because they could not start a national championship with neither a southern Italian team nor one from Venezia Giulia, that had become Italian only ten years earlier. As a consequence, Lazio too were admitted to the 1929-30 Serie A which instead of being made up of 16 teams, was now going to be 18. The same happened for Serie B so Prato, Legnano, Reggiana and Fiorentina would play in the second tier.
Bottacini and Spivach were the players with most appearances (30) and Spivach the leading goal scorer (13).
Let's talk about Paolo Paganini
Paolo Paganini was born in Vienna on September 4, 1901. He started playing football with Petrarca in 1922 but after a season signed for Spal where he stayed for four years and won a Second Division League. He arrived at Lazio in 1927. In the two years he was in Rome he started being scouted by the national team and he would have gone on to have a marvellous career if he had not suffered a serious injury in the match against Juventus on January 20, 1929. A fractured ankle left him out for a number of games. When he returned he was not the same.
In 1929 Lazio sold him to Napoli but he only made one appearance. He then went on to play for Padova, Forlì, Foligno and Luigi Arcangelo of Savignano.
He died on May 23, 1984 in Vicenza. With Lazio he made 39 appearances.
Lazio Career
Season | Total appearances | National Division | Serie A | Coppa Coni |
1927-28 | 27 | 18 | - | 9 |
1928-29 | 12 | - | 12 | - |
Total | 39 | 18 | 12 | 9 |
Sources
Comments