A certainty earned on the field, a new challenge ready to knock: this is how Lazio solved its most delicate rebus
Lazio, risolta la questione portiere: ecco chi arriva a luglio (foto: LaPresse) – serieanews.com
There are matches that serve to just put points on the board, others that leave more questions than answers. And then there are the derbies. Those are something else. Because derbies are not just a game: they are a mirror. They reflect everything. The best and the worst. The limitations, the fears, but also the truths that no one feels like saying out loud.
And one of them, from the parts of Formello, has always been there, quietly, filling bar chatter and managerial thoughts: but who will be Lazio’s goalkeeper of the future?
To be fair, the goalkeeper issue in the biancoceleste house did not suddenly explode. It has been going on for months, creeping silently. Because on balance, Ivan Provedel, a serious and professional goalkeeper, experienced a complicated season. In fact, two, giving the feeling that Lazio, with all due respect, needs something different. Not on a whim. Out of necessity.
Then soccer does its thing. It shuffles cards, creates chances, overturns hierarchies. It happens that Baroni, complicit in Provedel’s troubles, relies on a Greek boy who arrived on tiptoe, silently waiting for his chance: Christos Mandas. Little proclamation, lots of substance. A few good interventions, then increasingly solid performances, until that game there, the one that makes the noise: the derby.
Because in the derby you cannot cheat. And if in the derby you break out important saves and a simply monstrous one on Mancini’s header, then maybe something is really changing. And indeed something has changed.
Mandas e il rinnovo fino al 2029: cambia il portiere che cercherà la Lazio
Lazio has solved the problem at the root. In mid-March, as we anticipated, it made the move that tells more than a thousand words: renewal for Mandas until 2029.
Translated: we believe in you. You are not necessarily the owner for life, but you are certainly in on the project. An important step, but without rushing. Without the obsession of having to necessarily load everything on the shoulders of a 23-year-old boy.
Mandas e il rinnovo fino al 2029: cambia il portiere che cercherà la Lazio (ansafoto) – serieanews.com
For this reason, too, Lotito and Fabiani are already at work to find a new goalkeeper to work alongside him. No longer an unwieldy one, no longer an announced starter as, for example, Milinkovic-Savic would have been. What’s needed is a wingmate. One who accepts the challenge, but also knows how to sit on the bench without drama.
And here the name that comes back is that of Lorenzo Montipò. Coming off a difficult year in Verona, but a goalkeeper of experience and balance. The right profile to play it without war. Other options remain on the table, perhaps more experienced or more low-cost. But the sketch is drawn.
And what will Provedel do? For him, by now, the scenarios seem fairly written. Staying on as a reserve? Difficult. Say goodbye and start again elsewhere? Much more likely. Lazio, meanwhile, has found its way. Without proclamations, without forcing. A choice of balance rather than revolution.
Mandas remains there, on the goal line, with a fresh contract and a great desire to remain a star player. But with the knowledge that, in soccer, roles are defended one parade at a time.
This article Lazio, goalkeeper issue resolved: here’s who arrives in July appeared first on SerieANews.
