Lazio’s Goalkeeping Crisis is For Real

By: Martha | December 13th, 2007

I am old. So far this season, Lazio have been able to get past Grandpa Marco Ballotta’s periodic howlers and the shocking collapse of Deer in the Headlights Fernando Muslera (who hasn’t seen the pitch since the Milan disaster) by clinging to imminent the arrival of Juan Pablo Carrizo, whose passport issues everyone had been assured will be worked out by January. Erm.

According to club president Claudio Lotito, Carrizo’s arrival from River Plate is now far from a foregone conclusion, £5 million sale agreement between the clubs notwithstanding. The paperwork for his Italian passport (his great-grandfather was Piedmontese, you see, but that has to be proved) has supposedly been turned in, but given how long Amauri’s been waiting for his, it seems highly unlikely it’s going to be through in time for a winter move, so Lazio need to find a keeper they can count on, and fast.

As much as I like Ballotta (and, really, any footballer over 65) and as good as he is most of the time, his mistakes tend to be of the awful, game-changing variety, and Lazio simply cannot afford to put him back there and hope everything works out ok. And Muslera seems to have has little confidence in himself as the club do, so he’s out, as well. According to the the Italian press, the two names at the top of Lazio’s list to make their goal impenetrable are Milan-owned Christian Abbiati (on loan and sitting on his ass at Atletico Madrid) and Marco Amelia, who everyone wants but Livorno insist is going nowhere. If neither of those work out, the Serbian press have supposedly been floating Vlada Avramov’s name for the job, but since he’s currently third-choice at Fiorentina, that seems more like wishful thinking than anything else.*

Of course, given how desperate Lazio probably are at this point, they could be looking anywhere for someone who can catch the ball when it hits his hands and settled it when it comes to his feet, so it’s probably foolish to rule anyone out.

*Of course, with Sebastian Frey apparently out til February, even third-string Serbs are suddenly integral to Fiorentina’s plans. Sigh.