Lazio defender Alessio Romagnoli was sent off during Sunday's 3-0 home defeat to Inter, a dismissal that rules him out of the Coppa Italia final between the two sides scheduled for 13 May at the Olimpico — the same ground where he watched his team capitulate in front of their own supporters.

The suspension is the sharper wound. A league defeat, even a heavy one, can be absorbed over the remaining fixtures. Missing a cup final cannot. Romagnoli, 31, has appeared in 29 Serie A matches this season and carries a season average rating of 7.00 — a figure that reflects consistent, if unspectacular, reliability at the back. Losing him for the most significant match Lazio will play this calendar year is a blow that Maurizio Sarri's squad can ill afford.

The context around the sending-off makes it harder still to process. Inter, already crowned champions of Italy, arrived at the Olimpico and won with a composure that suggested they were barely extending themselves. Goals from Lautaro Martínez, Susic, and Mkhitaryan completed a 3-0 scoreline that Sarri himself described in candid, self-critical terms — a rare public acknowledgement from a coach not given to deflection. Cristian Chivu's Inter side, for their part, used the occasion to send a pointed message ahead of the cup final.

Lazio sit eighth in Serie A with 51 points from 36 matches, a record of 13 wins, 12 draws, and 11 defeats. The gap between the team's defensive solidity — 37 goals conceded across the campaign — and Sunday's collapse underlines how much the occasion, and perhaps the personnel, mattered. Romagnoli's AI overall score of 75 out of 100 places him as a dependable rather than elite operator, but dependability is precisely what Sarri will be missing when the cup final kicks off.

Udinese's win over Bologna on the same matchday has them pressing Lazio from ninth, which adds a layer of urgency to how the Biancocelesti close out the league season. But the Coppa Italia final now looms as the defining question: Sarri must reconstruct his defensive unit without his most experienced centre-back, against the same opponents who just dismantled them without breaking stride.