Latium, yesterday, today, tomorrow

Lazio, yesterday, today, tomorrow. He recalls its epic deeds, one of its lifelong fans, Mauro Mazza. The Roman journalist and writer, already director of Rai Uno and Tg2 Rai, does so exclusively for Sportal.it, on the eve of 2024: the football year that coincides with ù the 50th anniversary of Maestrelli’s historic Lazio Scudetto won at the end of the 1973-74 season. Mauro Mazza begins with the indelible memories of that first, historic conquest: “Since that victory 50 years ago” says the'former director of RaiUno in the quiet of his residence in Friuli where he has been living for a few years, “there’è a kind of test of lazialità among the biancocelesti” fans. 

The journalist refers to that sweet scanning, in a whiff of biancazzurro, the Italian champion formation that Mazza recites in a handful of seconds: “Pulici, Petrelli, Martini, Wilson, Oddi, Nanni, Garlaschelli, Re Cecconi, Chinaglia, Frustalupi, D’Amico”. Those eleven players, continues the journalist “entered the history of Italian soccer as the protagonists of a’unique and unrepeatable feat”. First Scudetto won by a club “all but rich with a few years of Serie B behind”. But here was the miracle performed by “a coach-papà who invented a very strong lineup, with a charismatic leader like captain Pino Wilson and a dragging force like Giorgio Chinaglia, around them 9 players who, as they went along, became convinced that the feat was possible”. A triumphant gallop, sums up Mazza: “Victory touched in 1972-1973, Scudetto deserved in the 1973-1974” season. Then a series of misfortunes raged against that group: the death of Maestrelli, that of King Cecconi…“But in the hearts of fans, that first Scudetto remains the most cherished of memories. “I was a teenager” recalls Mazza “I used to go to the stadium with my father, we did not skip a game. Then, years later, I became friends with Wilson and there wasn’t an evening together, often with Oddi and Facco, two other guys from that fantastic group, that he didn’t tell me episodes and anecdotes about that team. Thanks to him I understood that that brigade, beyond rivalries and legend, was united even off the field”. He recounts, Mazza, a gesture that has remained in Lazio history. “&It is significant that in Rome, in the Maestrelli family chapel, Giorgio Chinaglia also rests today, although he died in the United States. His body, by agreement with family members, was brought to Italy so that he could rest next to his Maestro. I believe that there are no similar examples in the history of world sports”.

Mauro Mazza and the second Scudetto 1999-2020 of Lazio presided over by Sergio Cragnotti, won with Swedish Sven Goran Eriksson on the bench. “While the first scudetto was the result of a miraculous mixture” recalls the ’former director of Tg2 Rai “that of Duemila, in Lazio’s centenary, was instead an almost scientific, expensive and beautiful” construction. He adds: “Every fan considers those “the best years of our lives”. The Lazio of Cragnotti and Eriksson for almost three years was really the strongest European team, won a lot, Scudetto, Cup Winners Cup, European Super Cup, but not as much as it deserved. It had in its roster champions in every department, difficult to name some, without forgetting others. These included Mancini, Vieri, Veron, Nesta, Nedved, etc. and then Marchegiani, Conceicao, Almeyda, Salas, Casiraghi…”. A flaw?. Smiles Mazza: “For the fan it was forbidden to get attached to individuals, Cragnotti sold and bought champions. There were no longer 'flags' just as there are now”. 

Returning to everyday footballing life, here is today&#39s Lazio. “This season’s performance confirms what we have seen in the 20 years of Lotito’s presidency” Mauro Mazza continues. “Thanks to him, Lazio has the certainty of having accounts in order, of being stably in Serie A and stationed at the top of the standings. But we also know that, besides these undoubted merits, with a personal management like his, more conditioned by the interests and ambitions of the president than by the hopes of the fans, the dream of a third Scudetto è destined to remain in the drawer. It is better to be content with some fine victories, the result of Sarri’s game that, when it runs at its best, è really spectacular. But, in the distance, with a squad not up to the mark especially in spare parts, one cannot realistically aim for the maximum. Now the crossroads è before the coach and, above all, the company;: continue with the current group and make a few grafts every year; or start over with a new cycle and a young rose. Meanwhile, for this year, let's enjoy an achievement, the upcoming Champions League round of 16 against a big team like Bayern Munich…who knows; when it will happen to us again”.