Lazio stroll to win against off colour Fiorentina
Lazio clinched an ultimately easy win against Fiorentina who, despite being disguised in unlikely red and white stripes, confirmed their recent poor form and to be going through a crisis period.
Also on this day: December 9, 1973, Lazio Roma 2-1. Giorgio Chinaglia scores winner to make it three consecutive wins over Roma. Player of the day: Paolo Franzoni
The season so far
The previous season had seen title winning Sven-Goran Eriksson leaving the club and the return of Dino Zoff. Lazio had fought for the title but eventually just lost out to city rivals Roma. A 3rd place finish did however give them a Champions League participation.
Lazio's main investments this year were defender Jaap Stam (Manchester United) and midfielder Gaizka Mendieta (Valencia). Mendieta in particular was considered a major swoop after his performances in the Champions League for Valencia. In had also come midfielders Giuliano Giannichedda and Stefano Fiore (both from Udinese), Fabio Liverani (Perugia), Brazilian César (Sao Caetano), Ivan de la Peña (back from loan periods after a disappointing time at Lazio 2 years earlier) and Serb forward Darko Kovacevic (Juventus).
Lazio had however also lost scudetto legends Pavel Nedved (Juventus), the 'Matador' Marcelo Salas (Juventus) and Juan Sebastian Veron (Manchester United) plus Fabrizio Ravanelli (Derby County) and Roberto Baronio (Fiorentina).
The season had started with 3 lacklustre draws which led the club to substitute manager Dino Zoff with Alberto Zaccheroni. Since then, despite a derby defeat, Lazio were slowly improving and came into today's game on a roll of 4 consecutive wins and a points tally of 20.
Fiorentina had finished 9th the previous year but had lifted the Coppa Italia with former Lazio Roberto Mancini as coach. The previous season had also been the first without goal scoring club hero Gabriel Omar Batistuta. This year the Florentine side had brought in keeper Alex Manninger (Arsenal), defender Alessandro Agostini (Ternana), midfielders Ezequiel Gonzalez (Rosario Central), Roberto Baronio (on loan from Lazio) and strikers Maurizio Ganz (Milan) plus local boy Anselmo Robbiati. On the other hand they had seen talented midfielder Rui Costa leave (Milan) as well as national keeper Francesco Toldo (Inter) plus Mauro Bressan (Venezia), Tomas Repka (West Ham) and Saliou Lassissi (Parma).
The season had started with a 3-0 defeat to Roma in the Italian Supercoppa and wasn't improving. They had suffered a string of poor results including home losses against Chievo Verona, Hellas Verona and Piacenza plus a heavy 4-1 away defeat to Lecce. Their only 3 wins had come against Atalanta, Venezia and Udinese. They arrived in the capital with a meagre 11 points.
The match: Sunday, December 9, 2001, Rome, Stadio Olimpico
Lazio came out to a 45,000 home crowd as strong favourites facing an off form Fiorentina. After an early opportunity for Hernan Crespo it took them only 12 minutes to impose their superiority. The ball was won back by Dejan Stankovic 30 metres out and Giannichedda slotted a pass to his right to Karel Poborsky at the edge of the area, the Czech pushed the ball into his stride a couple of metres inside the box and hammered an unstoppable cross goal shot.
Fiorentina did muster up a reaction but had a Ganz goal correctly disallowed for offside and a Baronio shot blocked by Liverani. For Lazio Fernando Couto almost doubled the lead just before half time.
The second half began with Lazio on the attack and Stankovic shot just over the bar and a Simone Inzaghi header was well saved by Manninger. In the 59th minute Inzaghi was put clean through towards goal with only the keeper to beat but was hypnotized by the “Viola” number 1 and the ball was saved spinning up to the edge of the box where Crespo crashed in a spectacular left-footed volley. A superb strike, a combination of agility, timing, technique and power for a memorable goal.
In the 62nd minute Fiorentina's hopes of a comeback were definitely dashed when Baronio was shown a red card for dissent. Lazio just controlled the game from then on but again found the net, for a third time, with 4 minutes to go. A good move started by Alessandro Nesta was skilfully finished off by Claudio Lopez with a perfectly placed volley from the edge of the area.
All in all a routine win for Lazio with too much quality for a poor Fiorentina who in addition didn't see things go their way in crucial moments, often the case when a situation is spiralling negatively out of control.
Who played for Lazio
Marchegiani, Negro, Nesta, Fernando Couto, César, Poborsky (41' Mendieta), Giannichedda, Liverani (81' Fiore), Stankovic, S. Inzaghi, Crespo (81' C. Lopez)
Substitutes: Concetti, Mihajlovic, D. Baggio, Kovacevic
Manager: Zaccheroni
Who played for Fiorentina
Manninger, Ceccarelli, Torricelli, Moretti, Vanoli, Tarozzi (61' Rossi), Di Livio, Baronio, Amoroso (73' Benin), Nuno Gomes, Ganz (65' Vakouftsis)
Substitutes: Taglialatela, Agostini, Amaral, Ficagna
Manager: Mancini
Referee: Bertini
Goals: 12' Poborsky, 59' Crespo, 86' C.Lopez
What happened next
Lazio failed to keep up the momentum after this 5th consecutive victory and a week later slumped to a 3-1 defeat at Hellas Verona.
The season would continue to lack any real consistency. The coach Zaccheroni seemed to struggle tactically and new signing Mendieta was a huge flop. Despite some good wins they suffered away defeats at Piacenza, Torino, Parma and Bologna plus a humiliating 5-1 destruction in the derby.
The last game of the season, a surprise 4-2 win against Inter earned them 6th place and a UEFA Cup qualification. This final game against Inter, on the now famous May 5, will always be remembered for the way the Milanese Nerazzurri threw away the title and for Ronaldo's subsequent tears. Inter needed a win to fend off Juventus and Roma but slumped to a shock defeat when everything seemed in place for their triumph (the opposition were not unbeatable and even most of Lazio fans were initially pro-Inter). Anyway history says Inter were pipped to the title by Juventus thus avoiding Lazio fans' fears of city rivals Roma snatching glory.
Fiorentina continued their dismal form. They tried to stop the freefall by signing Brazilian striker Adriano in January and he scored 6 goals but manager Mancini would be sacked in January and neither former player Luciano Chiarugi (for 1 game), Ottavio Bianchi (until 31 March) nor Chiarugi again could manage to avoid the “Viola” being relegated to the “purgatory” of Serie B. From March 24 to May 5 Fiorentina lost their last 7 matches of the season and were inevitably condemned to the drop. The 5th of May was a day of doom and gloom for a footballing town of Florence's passion and history but little did they know things were going to get worse, much worse.
Lazio 2001-02
Competition | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Goals scored |
Serie A | 34 | 14 | 11 | 9 | 50 |
Coppa Italia | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 6 |
Champions League | 8 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 9 |
Total | 46 | 19 | 11 | 16 | 65 |
Top five appearances
Player | Total | Serie A | Coppa Italia | Champions League |
Fiore | 40 | 30 | 20 | 8 |
Lopez | 38 | 29 | 1 | 8 |
Peruzzi | 37 | 27 | 2 | 8 |
Stankovic | 36 | 27 | 4 | 5 |
Couto | 35 | 29 | 2 | 4 |
Giannichedda | 35 | 28 | 3 | 4 |
Top Five Goal Scorers
Player | Total | Serie A | Coppa Italia | Champions League |
Crespo | 20 | 13 | 4 | 3 |
Lopez | 12 | 10 | - | 2 |
Stankovic | 8 | z7 | - | 1 |
S. Inzaghi | 6 | 5 | 1 | - |
Fiore | 5 | 3 | - | 2 |
Let's talk about Paolo Negro
Negro was born in Arzignano (Brescia), on 16 April, 1972.
Negro was a strong, physical defender who also excelled in the air. He had good pace when moving forward and despite his role was often on the score sheet.
He was a product of the Brescia youth sector but his senior career started at Bologna, where he spent 2 years before returning to his local club Brescia. A year later, in 1993, he was bought by Lazio where he spent the next 12 years. Negro arrived amid some scepticism from Lazio fans and local media. He did take a while settling in but over the following decade established himself as an excellent defender pairing up well both with Nesta and Sinisa Mihajlovic in the centre and also as an all round full back.
He played 376 games for Lazio (264 in Serie A, 47 in Coppa Italia, 23 in Champions League, 3 in the Cup Winners Cup, 37 in the UEFA Cup, one UEFA Super Cup final and one Super Coppa final) scoring 24 goals (19 in Serie A, 3 in Coppa Italia, one in Champions League and one in the UEFA Cup). He played under Zdenek Zeman, Dino Zoff and Sven Goran Eriksson amongst others. He won 8 trophies with Lazio including the “Scudetto” in 2000 and the European Super Cup in 1999 against Manchester United.
Negro will always be remembered on both sides of the Tiber due to his unfortunate own goal in the 2001 derby loss to Roma. He was then assiduously mocked for years by the “Giallorossi” fans but in all fairness it was probably Nesta who was more at fault for the blunder.
Negro did however get his revenge years later when playing for Siena, where he played for 2 years after leaving Lazio, between 2005 and 2007. Negro's payback moment came when he scored for Siena against Roma at the Olimpico in a shock 3-2 away victory, with all 3 goals coming from former Lazio players (Negro, Enrico Chiesa and Francesco Colonnese). It was no more "Paolo Negro gol" chants from taunting Roma fans.
At International level he won 8 caps for the 'Azzurri' national team and 10 for the Under 21's. He played a major role in Italy's runner-ups medal at the 2000 European Championships.
Paolo Negro will always be remembered fondly at Lazio for his quiet, unassuming, yet jovial character and especially for his key role in the glory years.
Lazio Career
Season | Total games (goals) | Serie A | Coppa Italia | Champions League | Cup Winners Cup | UEFA Cup | UEFA Super Cup | Super Coppa |
1993-94 | 26 (1) | 23 (1) | 1 | - | - | 2 | - | - |
1994-95 | 48 (8) | 32 (4) | 8 (3) | - | - | 8 (1) | - | - |
1995-96 | 39 (1) | 31 (1) | 4 | - | - | 4 | - | - |
1996-97 | 34 (3) | 27 (3) | 3 | - | - | 4 | - | - |
1997-98 | 47 (2) | 28 (2) | 10 | - | - | 9 | - | - |
1998-99 | 28 (3) | 21 (3) | 4 | - | 3 | - | - | - |
1999-00 | 42 (3) | 26 (2) | 5 | 10 (1) | - | - | 1 | - |
2000-01 | 33 (1) | 24 (1) | 3 | 5 | - | - | - | 1 |
2001-02 | 25 (1) | 16 (1) | 4 | 5 | - | - | - | - |
2002-03 | 28 (1) | 19 (1) | 3 | - | - | 6 | - | - |
2003-04 | 17 | 13 | 1 | 3 | - | - | - | - |
2004-05 | 10 | 4 | 1 | - | - | 4 | - | 1 |
Total | 376 (24) | 264 (19) | 47 (3) | 23 (1) | 3 | 37 (1) | 1 | 1 |
Sources
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