Giovanni Stroppa pulled no punches as he sat down to address the press on Sunday night after Cremonese clinched promotion back to Serie A.

The Grigiorossi manager was in an ebullient mood but temporarily put celebrations on hold when asked how he felt about being sacked back in October.

“Of all the four promotions I have won, this is the one that infuriates me the most as I had the rug pulled from under my feet,” he said.

“I left the team five points from automatic promotion and I returned a month later to a team that was 12 points behind automatic promotion.”

Replaced by Eugenio Corini eight games into the season, Stroppa was swiftly parachuted back barely a month later.

On Sunday, he talked about returning to a situation worse than the one he had left and how it served as a motivation.

Lazio will be hoping the same fire is burning inside Maurizio Sarri, after he returned to replace Marco Baroni who departed after just one season in charge. Sarri left the Biancocelesti in March 2024, resigning six months into his third season at the Stadio Olimpico.

“Maurizio Sarri has returned home. His return is a choice of heart, conviction and vision,” Lazio president Claudio Lotito said in a statement.

“With him, we want to resume a path interrupted too soon, aware that together we can bring back enthusiasm, identity and ambition. Welcome back to your home, commander.”

As Lotito suggested, Sarri’s departure from Lazio always felt premature.

He led them to fifth in Serie A in his first term in charge with 64 points, before finishing second behind Napoli with 74 points the following season.

It was their best finish since they won the Scudetto under Sven-Goran Eriksson in 2000. 

More to the point, for a city where getting one over your local rivals is just as important as silverware and perhaps even more so, Sarri won four of his six meetings with Roma while in charge of Lazio, losing just once.

Yet he was gone less than a year on from that second-place finish, after a defeat at home by Udinese – his team’s fourth loss in a row – left Lazio ninth in the table and three points outside the European places. 

While the former Chelsea manager was critical of Lazio’s transfer policy, his departure came as a shock to many including Lotito himself, who suggested the chain-smoking Sarri had been “betrayed” by people within the club.

“Sarri’s departure wasn’t expected at all. It was completely out of the blue,” he told Italian state broadcaster RAI at the time.

“He felt somewhat betrayed by the conduct of certain individuals; there’s a subtle, pervasive issue within the group.

“Am I talking about the team? I’m not saying anything specific. But a team that beats Bayern and then loses to Udinese, and it’s not just Udinese… you figure it out.”

Under Baroni, Lazio spent a large chunk of the season in the top four and lost to Bodo Glimt in the Europa League quarter-finals after topping the table in the league phase.

They went into the final day of the season with an outside chance of securing a Champions League spot, only to miss out on European football altogether after losing at home to 10-man Lecce.

Lazio’s absence from European competition will have a significant impact on their summer business, in terms of potential arrivals and departures that may be required to balance the books.

Transfers were a delicate issue in Sarri’s last summer in charge of Lazio, when his demands clashed with the club’s prudential approach to spending.

According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Sarri, who won the Serie A title with Juventus in 2020, has already made clear he wants four new players in the shape of two full-backs, a central midfielder and a striker.

Last season, Lazio scored 61 goals in Serie A under Baroni with Taty Castellanos and Pedro their top scorers in the league with 10 each. They netted 14 apiece in all competitions, with Boulaye Dia and Mattia Zaccagni contributing 12 and 10 respectively.

Along with Ivan Provedel, Matteo Guendouzi, Mario Gila and Nicolo Rovella, they should be the foundation of Sarri’s Lazio.

Sharing the attacking burden will also be crucial, with Sarri expected to switch from Baroni’s preferred 4-2-3-1 to his trademark 4-3-3.

In his first campaign in charge, Lazio scored 77 goals – more than any other team in the league bar Inter Milan – but conceded 58, the second-most of any team in the top 10 (Verona let in 59).

Significantly, while Sarri remained committed to his 4-3-3 formation, his team were far more solid in his second term, conceding just 30 goals in Serie A – the second-best defence behind champions Napoli.

Their attacking output, however, also dropped as Lazio scored 60 goals, the worst return of any team in the top five.

Ciro Immobile was central to both seasons, scoring 32 goals in all competitions in Sarri’s first term and 14 in the following campaign. 

The tally dropped to 11 in Sarri’s truncated final season, but Immobile was on the scoresheet as Lazio beat Bayern Munich 1-0 at the Olimpico in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16.

A Harry Kane brace and a goal from Thomas Muller overturned the deficit at the Allianz Arena but Sarri, and Simone Inzaghi in 2021, are the only managers to take Lazio to the knockout stages of the Champions League since Eriksson’s side lost to Valencia in the quarter-finals in 2000.

That Champions League run was the high watermark for Lazio in Europe under Sarri, following an exit in the Europa League knockout stage at the hands of Porto in his first season in charge.

They took the lead in Portugal but lost the first leg 2-1 before Porto secured a 2-2 draw in Rome to progress.

A year later, Lazio were knocked out in the group stages of the Europa League on goal difference, after finishing third behind Feyenoord and Midtjylland.

They dropped into the Europa Conference League as a result, beating Cluj 1-0 on aggregate before losing 4-2 over two legs to AZ Alkmaar in the round of 16.

European football will be absent on the blue and white divide of the Eternal City for the first time in eight seasons. It will be up to Il Comandante to ensure that remains an aberration.