Sunday 10th March 2002

Roma left Lazio's season in ruins tonight when they took a wrecking-ball to their city rivals, destroying them with a 5-1 victory, moving back to the top of the table in the process, level on points with Inter.

Vincenzo Montella's little aeroplane left the runway on four occasions, a first half hat-trick, and a fourth in the 64th minute, meant he left his mark, deeply embedded in the history books, as he became the first player ever to score four goals in the Rome 'derby'.

The first surprise came before the kick-off when Gabriel Batistuta was left out of the Roma squad, rumours surfaced that he'd stormed out of the stadium after being left out of the team for a second consecutive game, but this is highly unlikely, there's a big Champions League game coming up for Roma midweek and the striker is reported to be carrying a knee injury.

Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson had reportedly gone to the game to check out Lazio's Alessandro Nesta, but he will not be getting his cheque book out following this performance. Nesta had the worst game of his life, attempting to mark Montella he was twice beaten to headers and his hesitation in the box let the Roma striker steal the ball for a typical poachers effort. The defender didn't return for the second half amid rumours of a dressing room bust-up with coach Zaccheroni.

The weight of the occasion had clearly got to Zaccheroni even before the kickoff, and a defensive crisis led to him changing his formation at the last minute, leading to chaos in the Lazio defence. He's left with just next season to plan for, and it's highly doubtful that he'll still be around by then, despite having two more years left on his contract.

All season Lazio have demonstrated an inability to come back from a goal down and the writing was on the wall for them as early as the 13th minute when Montella beat Nesta to a header to give his side the lead, and from that moment the Wolves were on the rampage, hunting in packs.

Francesco Totti was majestic, Candela back on song but Montella was howling at the moon, and his fourth and final goal was a sublime effort from just outside the box, he struck it cleanly, it swerved slightly and dipped into the net, scraping the paint off the underside of the bar. No goalkeeper on earth could have stopped it. Dejan Stankovic had given Lazio the faintest glimmer of hope with a thunderbolt just after half time to make the score 3-1 but Montella closed the door. Totti rounded off the proceedings with a fantastic goal, an arrogant chip shot into the net and another close contender for goal of the season.