Di Canio relishes return to England

Paolo Di Canio will fulfil a personal dream when he returns to England to face Middlesbrough in the UEFA Cup on Thursday as a Lazio player.

The Group E match at the Riverside will be the extrovert Italian's first game back in England since his close-season transfer from Charlton to the club he supported as a boy.

"When I saw the draw I was really excited," the 36-year-old told Reuters. "It was my dream to come to England with Lazio."

For many years it seemed more like a fantasy. Rome-born Di Canio left Rome-based Lazio in 1990, bound for Juventus.

In the 14 years that followed he moved on to Napoli, AC Milan, Celtic, Sheffield Wednesday, West Ham and Charlton, but his chances of a return to the Italian capital seemed slim.

Four years ago Lazio were the Italian champions. What chance did the talented but unpredictable Di Canio stand of muscling into a team alongside Juan Sebastian Veron, Pavel Nedved and Hernan Crespo?

Ironically for such a staunch 'laziale', what opened the way for his return to Lazio also came close to destroying the club.

The collapse of parent company Cirio two years ago pushed the club to the brink of bankruptcy and prompted a clear-out of their leading players as the new management cut costs.

"Lazio fans wanted me back, and the supporters have a lot of power in Italy, but there wasn't the right situation during the last three years to bring me back to Italy," he said.

"This year, though, I felt something different, maybe because the club had economic problems and they needed a person who could be a focus for the fans, someone who could also help to improve results on the pitch.

"I kept my feet on the ground, but when I got the call from the president, (Claudio) Lotito, I realised there was a chance."

FOLK HERO

Di Canio arrived home to a hero's welcome. Seven thousand supporters clogged the country lanes around Lazio's headquarters outside Rome to watch his first training session.

Di Canio is one of them. Born in Rome's poor Quarticciolo district, he travelled with the Irriducibili, the club's hardcore supporters, as he worked his way up through the youth squads.

In January 1989 he scored his first Serie A goal in the city derby against AS Roma. He celebrated by running under the Olympic Stadium's South Stand, which was packed with Roma fans, and provocatively raising his middle finger.

The gesture made him a Lazio folk hero.

In its present incarnation the club is almost unrecognisable from the one Sven-Goran Eriksson led to the Serie A title in 2000.

Based around a small core of senior players, the squad is composed largely of hastily promoted youth team players and a raft of little-known South Americans picked up en masse hours before the transfer deadline expired.

The coach charged with moulding this disparate group of players into a team is Domenico Caso, a former Lazio player from its second division days in the mid-1980s who managed the youth squad before being thrust unexpectedly into Serie A this season.

"He has a good approach with the players, not too friendly and not too cold. He was lucky as well because he found a good group (of players)," Di Canio said.

"There are a lot of Romans here, like (striker Roberto) Muzzi and (midfielder Fabio) Liverani, and there were many experienced players, like me, who decided to come and accept the situation."

ROMAN SENATOR

The club has had mixed results so far this season. In the UEFA Cup they drew 1-1 in their opening Group E match against last season's semi-finalists Villarreal. In Serie A the club started strongly, but now lie midtable after losing three of their last six games.

Di Canio more often starts on the bench than in the starting XI, prompting him to observe that Caso prefers "quantity over quality".

But he rarely stirs up controversy within the team, choosing instead to be its most visible spokesman and cheerleader. The Italian cavalier has belatedly assumed the role of a Roman senator.

From a personal point of view he has no regrets about leaving England. He accepted a 75 percent pay cut on his 20,000 pounds-a-week ($36,650) contract at Charlton to return to Rome, but now he is closer to his brothers and his parents, who still live in the Quarticciolo.

He is quickly readjusting to Serie A, though he says he misses the passion of English football.

"Here, if you don't stay at the top, the people don't go to the games.

"In England, the stadiums are usually full, the fans love the colours, they mix with each other. There is more exciting football because there are more open games, the players want to win, score more goals."

Di Canio maintains a healthy realism about Lazio's chances at home and abroad.

"To win big titles you need to buy players like Shevchenko, Kaka, Nesta. The club can't do that," he admitted.

"We're not going to win the league, but we'll never give up. We want to play with honour, and we will give everything to get a result and make the fans happy."