THE VITALS:

Team: Lazio

Brand: Puma

Era: 2000-01 (Used for the 2000-01 Serie A season)

Name/Number: -

CONDITION: EXCELLENT

This shirt, despite being over 20 years old, remains in nothing short of excellent condition! The felt sponsor and Puma emblem are still firmly attached, with only the white accents of the shirt showing some slight discolouring; you will be hard-pressed to find another version of this shirt (that isn’t a remake) in better condition!

DIMENSIONS:

Size: 34/36

Pit to Pit Measurement: 20 inches

Shirt Length: 29 inches 

Made by Puma in their ‘Puma Authentic Apparel, range of shirts which they introduced in 2000; although this shirt is a size 34/36; the dimensions and fit of the shirt lend itself much more akin to a size small, and may even fit even comfortably some people who wear a size medium shirt.

DESCRIPTION:

Puma’s second iteration of Lazio’s home shirt would be a perfect to a successor to their classic inaugural effort; adding to their pantheon a second bona-fide classic entry! This shirt would again take Puma’s seasonal template and continue the use of black as the shirts secondary colours, meanwhile, the a more vibrant shade of blue would be used, while the classic collar was replaced by a contemporary v-neck collar. This shirt would also be the first to use the iconic Siemens Mobile Phones sponsorship which become so prominent in Europe during the early-2000’s! Unfortunately, while the shirt was no doubt a classic, the season would be disappointing as Lazio saw fierce city rivals – Roma dethrone them of the Scudetto by 6 points, while the season saw Sven-Goran Eriksson take the England national team job and replaced by Dino Zoff who guided the club to a 3^rd place finish. This would be the last home to shirt to be worn by club legends of the double winning triumph in 1999-00: Pavel Nedved, Juan Sebastian Veron, Fabrizio Ravanelli and Marcelo Salas.

THE SEASON:

At the close of the first Serie A season of the 21^st century; Lazio would win their first Scudetto for 26 years after a truly incredible final day of the season title win! Their 1999-00 campaign was nothing short of sensational as they also won the UEFA Super Cup and the Coppa Italia while also narrowly being eliminated in the quarter final of the UEFA Champions League by eventual runners-up – Valencia.

In their first title defence, Sergio Cragnotti would spare no expense in creating an even further formidable outfit, adding the likes of: Claudio Lopez (from Valencia no less!), Karel Poborsky, Dino Baggio, Angelo Peruzzi, and would break the world transfer fee to secure the services of Hernan Crespo from Parma for a total value of £35 million. To help secure the Crespo transfer, both Matias Almeyda and Sergio Conceicao would be part-exchanged to Parma, while Nestor Sensini, Alen Boksic and Roberto Mancini would also move on in the summer of 2000.

The Serie A title defence began away against newly promoted Atalanta, and disappointingly, the champions would be held to a 2-2 draw in Bergamo on 1^st October. A disappointing start to the season continued as 2000 drew to a close, and after failing to beat either: Juventus, AC Milan and Parma in succession; Lazio would find themselves 8 points off the pace before the league went on hiatus for the winter break.

2001 would see Sven-Goran Eriksson terminate his deal as Lazio manager to start duties early with the England national team and Dino Zoff would take over the reins. After falling 2-1 at home to Napoli in their first league game of the new year, Lazio would embark on an 8 match unbeaten streak where they claimed 7 victories to close the gap on 2^nd place Juventus to just 2 points, and would go on to claim a legendary 4-1 over ‘I Bianconeri’ on 18^th March. Another final surge at trying to defend the title in the final quarter of the season, winning 4 on the bounce with the Rome Derby next on the horizon, where a win would negate the gap with Roma to 4 points. A 2-2 draw would play out thanks to Lucas Castroman’s late wonder goal. After reeling off 3 more wins, they would move into 2^nd place with 3 games to go and Roma leading by 5 points, however, they would drop 2 points late on versus Internazionale – all but ending their unlikely late title charge. Lazio would have to settle for a 3^rd place finish after they were upset 2-1 by Lecce on the final day of the season.

Lazio would kick off the season however fuelling the pre-season optimism as they beat Internazionale 4-3 in an epic Supercoppa Italiana 2000 affair on 9^tH September! Their Coppa Italia defence however, would meet its end in the quarter final when they thwarted 5-3 on aggregate by Udinese.

The UEFA Champions League campaign would be the biggest disappointment however, after a tepid showing in the 2^nd Group Stage saw them miss out on the knock-out stages. They would successfully navigate the 1^st Group Stage as they finished level on points with Arsenal, before entering a 2^nd Group Stage with Anderlecht, Leeds United and defending champions – Real Madrid. Lazio would only win 1 of their 6 outings to finish bottom of the group. 

The notable players that season were:

Hernan Crespo, Claudio Lopez, Simone Inzaghi, Marcelo Salas, Fabrizio Ravanelli, Karel Poborsky, Ivan De La Pena, Attillio Lombardo, Lucas Castroman, Dejan Stankovic, Pavel Nedved, Roberto Baronio, Diego Simeone, Dino Baggio, Giuseppe Pancaro, Fernando Couto, Giuseppe Favalli, Alessandro Nesta, Sinisa Mihajlovic, Paolo Negro, Francesco Colonnese, Angelo Peruzzi, Luca Marchegiani