Less than 72 hours after kicking off a Coppa Italia game at home to Napoli, Lazio lined up to face a different team dressed as the same one. Their opponents on Sunday wore the club badge of the opponents they had beaten 3-1 on Thursday, yet none of the faces were familiar.

That was because Napoli’s manager, Antonio Conte, had made a full 11 changes to his starting team. He would not say outright that he had deprioritised the cup, but it was clear he viewed the players used on Thursday as his second string.

“What other opportunity do I have [to give them a game]?” he replied when asked about his selection. “These lads are working really hard, if you don’t give them this chance you are going to lose the group.”

He could not have risked them, in other words, for a match that really mattered, like the one on Sunday night. Napoli were seeking to reclaim their place at the top of the Serie A table after Atalanta moved ahead by beating Milan at the start of the weekend. And Conte did not need a trial run to know that Lazio were stiff opposition.

The Biancocelesti have been one of the most surprising teams in Serie A this season: shaking off a wobbly start to embark on a run of 11 wins in 12 games from September into late November and establish themselves as contenders for a Champions League spot. Few could have seen that coming back in June, when Igor Tudor resigned as manager and thousands of fans protested in the streets following the appointment of Marco Baroni as his successor.

Their anger was not directed at the new hire, but at the owner Claudio Lotito – accused of caring too much for the bottom line and not enough for the club’s aspirations or sense of identity. Baroni was simply the latest manifestation: a man whose previous Serie A stints had all been with teams from the lower-half of the table.

Tudor had been in charge only briefly, collecting 18 points in nine games after the resignation of Maurizio Sarri. That he should lose faith so quickly after an outwardly promising start sent its own message. So did Sarri’s departure, less than a year after he took Lazio to second place.

Sergej Milinkovic-Savic had left right after that. Luis Alberto and Ciro Immobile followed this summer. Coming in, through this same period, were players such as Mattéo Guendouzi and Nuno Tavares, players perceived – fairly or otherwise – as discards. Together with them were a handful of late bloomers such as Boulaye Dia, who scored 16 goals at Salernitana in 2022-23 but who was now 28 years old and had hit double figures in only one other season as a pro.

Baroni, though, saw qualities that were underappreciated. Perhaps this Lazio group was less technically gifted than the previous one, but they had runners in abundance and players who could dominate physically. He leaned into a vertical, direct style that had served him well in his previous role at Verona.

The philosophy was best summed up by Baroni after a win over Genoa in late October. “Positional football is over,” he said. “What we need to do now is focus on our movement, getting out of our usual zones on the pitch.”

His Lazio overwhelmed Napoli in the Coppa Italia game on Thursday, Tijjani Noslin hitting a hat-trick by the 50th minute. Sunday’s match, against Conte’s strongest XI, was always going to be a different matter.

Baroni himself made nine changes from the cup match, with only Mattia Zaccagni and Fisayo Dele-Bashiru keeping their places. The distinction between first and second choices was less clear here, Nicolò Rovella playing the cup game but missing the league encounter through suspension, while Manuel Lazzarri – who has started most often at right-back, making way for Adam Marusic.

It was a game low on chances but not action, both teams taking care in their defensive duties but both also showing the capacity to change gears and genuinely threaten in transition. Napoli, playing at home this time, started faster, but it was Dele-Bashiru for the visitors who thundered a shot off the underside of the bar just after half-time. Frank Anguissa responded with a header off a post.

Lazio made the breakthrough with 12 minutes remaining, Gustav Isaksen beating Mathías Olivera to a cross-field pass from the substitute Noslin before cutting in from the right and firing into the far corner. It was a goal straight from Baroni’s playbook. The Biancocelesti have made more crosses this season than any other team in Serie A, and many look like this: deployed before the action reaches the penalty box.

The game ended 1-0 to Lazio: their second win over Napoli in three days and also their third consecutive win over these opponents at the Stadio Diego Maradona. The previous two were under Sarri but Baroni has his own fond memories of this place. His leaping header for Napoli against Lazio back in April 1990 secured the Partenopei’s second Serie A title.

Baroni’s feet were firmly on the ground at full-time, as he claimed that his team “like this kind of match because it gives us a chance to compare ourselves with opponents who are stronger than us.”

He was careful to avoid being drawn into a conversation about ambitions for the season, but after 15 games his team is joint-third, level on points with Inter and Fiorentina pending the eventual conclusion of their interrupted game at the start of this month. The gap to first-place Atalanta is only three points.

“It’s hard to keep climbing from here, and it doesn’t take much to fall a long way,” reflected Baroni, but Conte had a different perspective. “Lazio are not a meteor [out of nowhere],” said the Napoli manager. “They are an excellent team who are playing very well.”