Ciro Immobile: Tears at Fiumicino, trouble in traffic

A microphone and a short two-minute video is all the goodbye that Lazio afforded their all-time top goalscorer. Ciro Immobile left for Istanbul on Friday night and met a young Lazio fan at Fiumicino Airport who posed a simple question: “Ciro, ti posso da’ un abbraccio?”

“Ciro, can I give you a hug?” After eight years as Lazio’s goalscoring machine and spiritual leader, intimate encounters are nothing new yet this young lad’s audible sobbing as he embraced his team’s captain one last time is further proof that football is not just a game.

Football fandom is nuanced. Just as the crying fan drenched Immobile in Roman tears, one only has to think back to March when a Lazio fan spotted Immobile in traffic, got out of their car and harassed him in front of his son. Around the same time, his wife was verbally abused in public.

Turning down a life changing sum from Saudi Arabia in summer 2023 must have felt like a regrettable decision when the so-called superfans of his club thought best to project their frustrations onto Immobile in public.

206 goals. Club record. Coppa Italia winner. Champions League nights. Immobile leaves Italy as a Lazio legend but retains a complicated legacy in Italian and European football.

Immobile’s relationship with Lazio and its fans feels like that of a married couple.

His career could have been so different. Almost two decades have passed since Ciro Ferrara advised Juventus to sign him from Sorrento for €80,000, however it wasn’t until 2011 and a loan to Pescara that Immobile burst onto the scene.

Zdenek Zeman’s Pescara stormed to the Serie B title in 2011-12, with The Bohemian putting together a side that will live long in hipster memory. Immobile, Insigne and Verratti. Quite a trifecta.

A season at Genoa followed before he joined Torino, scoring 23 goals in a season that propelled him into the spotlight for real and saw him off to Germany, off to a Borussia Dortmund team reaching the end of its Klopp cycle.

The German club deemed 10 goals in 34 games a poor return on their near €20m investment and cut their losses by selling him to Sevilla in summer 2015. He would be back in Italy not long after Christmas, returning to his homeland and old Torino with his tail between his legs.

He had moved abroad, and it didn’t work. Torino was a safety blanket, a level of pressure that Immobile could manage. Half a season in Turin turned into eight years in the capital as Lazio took a chance on him in the summer of 2016.

Immobile’s relationship with Lazio and its fans feels like that of a married couple. The love is (almost) unconditional and the respect is mutual, but they bicker from time to time. ‘Bicker’ is certainly an understatement when referring to harassment and/or assault in public, but you get the idea.

It looked like one season too far for Immobile.

It can be difficult to be present as a modern football fan. Stadium screens and TVs are always telling you what’s next. Results are scrutinised in the context of what it means for the season. Performances are secondary in an age where cash rules everything. 

The effect this has on fans often means we don’t know what we’ve got until it’s gone. In the case of Immobile, you could say Lazio didn’t know how good they had it. 

Their preparation for a post-Immobile world began a year ago with the signing of Taty Castellanos. Signed as cover/competition for King Ciro, the Argentine was surely quietly hopeful that the rumoured Saudi interest in his teammate came to fruition.

Both strikers struggled to hit any real heights last season in a Lazio side that seemed to be at war with itself. Castellanos couldn’t make an immediate impact in the way other Argentine forwards have in Italy, while it looked like one season too far for Immobile. 

To his credit, the Lazio captain still scored 11 goals, including the winner in a memorable Champions League night against Bayern, but his story in the Eternal City was clearly coming to an end. 

An irresponsible remark and one that set the path for a sour ending to the story of King Ciro.

Maurizio Sarri resigned in March, days before the incident with the fan getting out of their car to abuse Immobile. Lazio were 9th, a gruesome failure compared to their 2nd place finish the previous year.

Sarri showed a sense of humility in resigning in an age where managers often cling on for compensation, but the Lazio president Claudio Lotito saw it differently.

“His farewell was not in the air, it was surprising. He was betrayed by the behaviour of certain people. There is something creepy inside the group. A team that beats Bayern Munich and loses to Udinese. Ask yourself a question.” 

Lotito added fuel to a fire that had burned for months. An irresponsible remark and one that set the path for a sour ending to the story of King Ciro.

Thankfully, it’s the sort of incident that should be a minor footnote in the Lazio-Immobile story. This is a tale of broken records; cup wins and a return to the top table of European football.

Ciro Immobile’s 207 Lazio goals sets a record that seems unlikely to be broken anytime soon.

No wonder the young lad at the airport cried in his hero’s arms. He’s grown up watching one of Italian football’s great goalscorers and should consider himself lucky to have witnessed such feats. 

Just as football fandom is nuanced, fleeting and often bordering on weird, the business of football dictates that we must learn to move on. Cry today, worship a new hero tomorrow. 

That might be hard to hear for many Laziali but that’s life. Everything must come to an end and, in time to come, I’m sure some will agree that it probably should have come to an end sooner, an assessment that prompts another life lesson. Heroes rarely go out on a high. This is reality, not a fairytale.

King Ciro will surely be welcomed back with open arms at Lazio in years to come, remembered as a club legend. For now, the club and its fans must move on and find a new goal machine. Castellanos? Maybe, maybe not.