Baroni: ‘The final half-hour is who Lazio really are’ | OneFootball

Marco Baroni admits the sluggish Lazio starts to each half are a mystery to him, but ‘the last half-hour is who we really are’ after fighting back from 2-0 to hold Parma 2-2.

It was a strange night at the Stadio Olimpico, as the Aquile knew from previous results that a win would let them leapfrog Bologna into fifth place.

Instead, they were trailing 2-0 at the dawn of the second half to a pair of Jacob Ondrejka goals, penalised for a sluggish start to both halves and failing to create any real chances.

It was only once Baroni made three substitutions that the team sprung into life, as they combined for two Pedro goals in the space of five minutes and pushed forward for a third, but it was too late to turn it around.

Baroni tries to focus on Lazio positives

ROME, ITALY – APRIL 28: Pedro of Lazio scores his team’s second goal during the Serie A match between SS Lazio and Parma at Stadio Olimpico on April 28, 2025 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Paolo Bruno/Getty Images)

“Clearly, conceding after two minutes puts you in a bad state of mind, but the second goal straight after the restart made us feel luck was against us with that double ricochet,” Baroni told Sky Sport Italia.

“In any case, the team tried to play, but we didn’t have the speed of movement that we needed. The substitutions allowed us to change gear and I would like to build on the final half-hour. We wanted a victory, we really miss winning in front of our fans.

“The last half-our is who we really are, playing with tempo, determination and hunger. I am very happy for Pedro scoring two goals, as he is infinite.

“Parma were time-wasting towards the end, but we too should’ve done a lot better dealing with the long balls.

“I try to see how I can improve these lads, we are in the final sprint, we’re in it to the end and will not let go. Recovering from 2-0 down means this team never gives up and that is important, because we need that fight.”

The mood is sombre, because while they rescued a point when trailing 2-0 at the 78th minute, they will nonetheless see this as another missed opportunity in a long campaign full of them.

Instead of going fifth, Lazio are caught by rivals Roma on 60 points and go down to seventh place because of their inferior head-to-head record with the Giallorossi.

Baroni was told a strange statistic, which is that Lazio have conceded 45 per cent of all their Serie A goals this season in either the first 15 minutes of the game or the first 15 minutes of the second half.

Evidently, something is very wrong with their approach to these matches coming out of the tunnel.

“We are working on this, but it is our 48th game of the season. We will analyse the situation, but right now I want to focus on the fact not many teams could fight back from 2-0 down like that. This is the mentality we need to build on,” insisted Baroni.

“Some of those errors could’ve killed another side off, but if we had equalised earlier, I believe we would’ve won the match.”