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Lazio

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Full name	Società Sportiva Lazio SpA
Nickname(s)	Biancocelesti
Founded	1900
Ground	Stadio Olimpico, Rome, Italy
Capacity	82,656
Chairman	Claudio Lotito
Manager	Delio Rossi
League	Serie A
2004-05	Serie A, 10th
Home colours Away colours

S.S. Lazio (Italian: Società Sportiva Lazio SpA) is an Italian football club based in Rome, Latium. They are known as the biancocelesti. They play in light blue shirts, with white shorts and socks.

The club was founded on January 9th 1900 as Società Podistica Lazio. The name Lazio was taken from the Latin word "Latium", that means "wide", meeting the aim of the founders to symbolize something that includes Rome, but which is not limited to Rome (in fact, Lazio is the name of the region where Rome lies). The sky blue and white strip colours were inspired by the Greek flag and the country which gave birth to Olympic tradition. At the very beginning of its history, the club ran a number of different sporting activities and, from 1902, the club started the football section.

The club did not join the league competition until 1913. They made the national decider a number of times but lost, often heavily - 9-1 on aggregate to Casale in 1914 and 6-1 on aggregate to Genoa 1893 in 1923.

The club played in the first Serie A, but their highest pre-war finish was second in 1937. Post-war the club continued to fail in the league, but did win the Coppa Italia in 1958. However, they had to wait until 1974 for their first scudetto led by Giorgio Chinaglia.

However, when Sergio Cragnotti became president of the club, he was prepared to invest long-term in new players for the club. In 1993 Lazio finished fifth in Serie A, fourth in 1994, second in 1995, third in 1996, and fourth again in 1997 before winning the scudetto for the second time in 2000 with Sven-Göran Eriksson (1997-2001) as manager. They had Coppa Italia victories in 1998, 2000 and 2004 and they also won the last UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1999.

But after a financial scandal which invested Cragnotti and his foodstuff multinational Cirio, Lazio was controlled in 2004 by a bank pool, in order to be sold to enterpreneur Claudio Lotito, who is the current team owner. The new season for Lazio brought away several strong team players, who were sold to make up the big deficit that regarded the team, which is quoted at the Piazza Affari Italian stock market. During this summer, former 36-year old Lazio star Paolo Di Canio accepted to join his favourite team one more time, giving up a much more worthwhile contract from his previous team Charlton Athletic.

The club plays at the 82,656 seater Stadio Olimpico, shared with A.S. Roma. The two teams play one another each year in the Rome derby, a fiery, emotional match often marked with tension and fights in the stands. The two clubs have a history of rivalry; in the 2003 season an unprecedented event occurred when the Roma Ultras forced the game to be suspended after false rumours spread around the stadium that a child had been killed by the police prior to the beginning of the game. In the current 2004/2005 season, Lazio won the first leg of the derby 3-1, while the second leg was a 0-0 draw.

Lazio is notorious for the fascist sympathies of many of its fans, with racist and anti-Semitic flags and banners, including signs in support of Slobodan Milošević and Arkan, a regular feature at home matches. This has leant significance to matches against left-wing clubs, especially Livorno.

First team squad

As of October 2005 Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player 1 GK  ITA Angelo Peruzzi 2 DF  ITA Guglielmo Stendardo 3 MF  ITA Roberto Baronio 4 MF  ITA Fabio Firmani 5 DF  ITA Felice Piccolo 6 MF  FRA Ousmane Dabo 7 DF  ITA Manuel Belleri 8 DF  ITA Luciano Zauri 9 FW  ITA Paolo di Canio 10 MF  BRA César (captain) 13 DF  ITA Sebastiano Siviglia 13 MF  ITA Lorenzo De Silvestri 16 DF  ITA Andrea Giallombardo 17 FW  ALB Igli Tare 18 FW  ITA Tommaso Rocchi 19 FW  MKD Goran Pandev

No. Pos. Nation Player 20 MF  ITA Fabio Liverani 21 FW  ITA Simone Inzaghi 22 DF  ITA Massimo Oddo 25 DF  BRA Cribari 26 MF  BEL Gaby Mudingayi 28 DF  ITA Fabio Zaccardi 29 MF  ITA Andrea Ciani 31 MF  DEN Christian Keller 32 GK  ITA Marco Ballotta 33 GK  ITA Matteo Sereni 47 GK  ITA Alessio De Angelis 56 MF  ITA Francesco Torroni 68 MF  ITA Christian Manfredini 69 DF  ITA Marco Angeletti 85 MF  SUI Valon Behrami

Famous players

• Dino Baggio
• Alen Bokšić
• Giorgio Chinaglia
• Hernán Crespo
• Paolo Di Canio
• Paul Gascoigne
• Roberto Mancini
• Pavel Nedvěd
• Alessandro Nesta
• Angelo Peruzzi
• Silvio Piola
• Marcelo Salas
• Giuseppe Signori
• Jaap Stam
• Juan Sebastián Verón
• Christian Vieri

Team honors

• Italian Champions 2 1973/74 1999/00
• Italian Cup 4 1958 1997/98 1999/00 2003/04
• Italian SuperCup 2 1998 2000
• UEFA Cup Winners' Cup 1 1998/99
• European Super Cup 1 1999

External links

• Template:It icon Official website
• Template:It icon Lazio.net Community (Ass. Cult. Lazio.net)
• Template:It icon SS Lazio News (FC Italia)
• Template:En icon LazioFever The International site in English language about Lazio
• Template:Fr icon Francia Biancoceleste (Ultras Lazio)

• Italian football clubs
• Rome