Leaders Celtic will resume their Europa League Group E charge when Lazio visit Parkhead on Thursday.
Here, the PA news agency looks at what lies ahead for the Scottish champions.
European history
Lazio are no strangers to this competition, having reached the final in 1998 before losing to Serie A rivals Inter. This is their third straight season in the Europa League group stage and they are looking to progress to the knockout rounds for a third year in a row. Lazio won the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in 1999 before beating Champions League winners Manchester United to secure the UEFA Super Cup in the same year. Despite both clubs’ rich history in Europe, this will be the first meeting between Lazio and Celtic.
Coach
Simone Inzaghi enjoyed a long and successful playing career with Lazio, winning the Serie A and multiple Coppa Italia titles before announcing his retirement in 2010. He remained at the club as a youth coach and was in 2016 asked to lead the senior team on a caretaker basis following Stefano Pioli’s exit. After being briefly replaced by Marcelo Bielsa, Inzaghi was handed the reins full-time that summer and he has since guided the club to a series of strong league finishes and Coppa Italia glory last season.
Form
Lazio head into Thursday’s clash on the back of a four-match unbeaten run after following up a comprehensive Serie A victory over Genoa and a 2-1 success against Group E rivals Rennes with battling league draws against Bologna and Atalanta. But it has not been all plain sailing for seventh-place Lazio who have struggled on the road this season, slipping up at SPAL and Inter in the league and losing 2-1 away to Cluj in their Europa League opener.
One to watch
Ciro Immobile has been in sensational form for Lazio so far this season, scoring nine goals in eight games to lead the Serie A top-scorer standings. The Italy striker, who won the top-flight golden boot while playing for Torino in the 2013-14 campaign, has settled in well at Lazio after joining them in 2016 following stints at Borussia Dortmund and Sevilla. Immobile has amassed a total of 76 goals in 113 Serie A games for Lazio, including a second-half brace from the spot as they snatched a point against Atalanta on Saturday.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here