Lazio – Lecce

By: cathal | October 3rd, 2008

Lazio will welcome newly promoted Lecce to the Stadio Olimpico tomorrow afternoon and we will be bidding to collect all three points against a side widely tipped for relegation.

We may be sitting proudly at the top of the table but Lecce are certainly exceeding expectations. Nevertheless, this is a must win game for us as on paper, this is one of the season’s easiest encounters. Lecce play a certain brand of football as do we and what it will all boil down to tomorrow, in my opinion, is a battle between the Lazio attack and the Lecce defence.

We have got a good squad assembled and ready to play but unfortunately Rocchi will not be part of the proceedings. He has recovered fully from his leg injury but has now contracted tonsillitis and will be left out. This is a grave shame to all of us fans who were hoping to see a glimpse of him in action. Also out of the game is Matuzalem, Firmani and Del Nero. However, both Inzaghi and Diakite’ have been rewarded with places in the squad after encouraging midweek performances. I would expect Rossi to field a team similar to the side that lined out against Torino. The only stumbling block is fatigue. Having played on Wednesday night, the players have less than 72 hours to recover and that could cause problems late in the game. I think Ledesma could be the one who suffers the most but hopefully facing the club that kickstarted his career will give him added impetus.

Lecce’s stubborn defensive game will have to be perfect to stop the seemingly unstoppable Pandev and Zarate. Their defense will be headed by Lazio outcast, Stendardo. Guglielmo will make an emotional return to the Olimpico and will no doubt be looking to get one over on us. I wish him all the best at Lecce, I really do, but I will be gutted if he comes back to bite us in the ass tomorrow. The other thing that concerns me is their manager; Beretta is a vastly underrated tactician and I expect Lecce to come out with a firm gameplan. Looking at their probable line up, I have to say they do have quite a few decent players too, particularly Caserta, but to be honest, there’s only one acceptable result for us; a convincing win.

I would be incredibly disappointed and frustrated if we got anything less than a win from the game. Lecce will cause us problems and will pose a threat but if we keep calm and snuff out the danger then we can look forward to another week on top. Forza Lazio!