2 down…

By: salvatore | September 14th, 2008

The team’s incredible start to the season continued unabated today, with a comfortable and confident 2-0 win against a very solid team. It’s not as eye-catching a margin of victory as the season opener, but Sampdoria is not Cagliari…and Cassano is not Larrivey. Samp, as we all know, is a strong team, which makes Lazio’s performance today all the more impressive, especially when you consider that we’re still missing players like Rocchi, Radu, Matuzalem, and Dabo. Last season, an injury list that would have guaranteed a string of losses. Now? Not so much.

Delio clearly has some depth to play with this year, and this team is starting to look like they can make some serious noise. Of course, we’re only two games in, so everyone needs to keep their feet on the ground. The season is very, very long, and anything can and most probably will happen. So let’s take things one week at a time.

That said, there were some really positive signs from today’s win. Most obvious, I think, is the brilliance of Zarate and Pandev up front. For the second straight game the two played great together, with both scoring fantastic goals (Mauro’s in particular is a thing of real beauty. Check out the second angle in the highlights video below. The way he turns away from three defenders is unreal.)

Most Lazio fans had a good idea that the Zarate Kid had some talent, and that he was a good pick-up. I don’t think any of us expected him to be such a hard-running and hard-working player. Nor did anyone think he’d adapt this quickly to the league. In any case, with Rocchi’s return on the horizon, the thought of a Goran – Mauro – Balboa trident is starting to really, really look good.

The play of Lichsteiner and Rozehnal stood out today too, with the former setting up a goal and closing things down well, and the latter filling in the commanding center back void this team’s been missing for years. With all due respect to Siviglia, who I think has started the year well, if the team can pick up a quality center back to play alongside Rozehnal, the defensive side of things is going to be solid for a long time.

An option, of course, is to keep playing Kolarov on the left-side (he too looked very strong today), and move Radu to the middle once he returns from injury. Personally, I think this would be the ideal situation, but Delio clearly has an affinity for the Siviglia’s experience.

In any case, I was impressed with the team’s overall defensive organization today, even if it’s possible the presence of a real, honest to God keeper is making the back line seem stronger than it really is. In all seriousness though, excluding a period towards the end of the first half, when Samp created some opportunities, I never really felt like we were going to be scored on…and that’s really a change from last season.

Also of note was the performance of Cristian Brocchi. If anything was forgotten in the 4-1 Sardinian victory, it was just how badly the bruising midfielder played, and how much better the team looked when he was substituted.

Well, if today was any indication, we could probably consider that first game Broch N’ Roll’s adjustment period. Against Samp, he was exactly the player we were expecting, running things down, winning balls, and even setting things up (Pandev’s strike is partly his creation). Good on ya Cristian…

Here are the highlights: