"Athletes need carbohydrates for proper muscle development," says Professor Cama, "It is not easy if you only eat only pasta of an afternoon and it isn't enough to deal with the players appetites.

"A nice slice of pizza, with tomato or with potato, with a little olive oil, has a low amount of fat, creates a balanced diet and is easy to digest and tasty," he said. The diet has an added bonus claims the professor. "The boys are happy and that has a good psychological effect on the team."

In line with the professor's plan, on Wednesday, a van arrived at the club's Formello training camp delivering steaming hot pizza from a local restaurant for Lazio stars like Sebastian Veron and Marcelo Salas.

The new diet allowed by Swedish coach Sven Goran Eriksson is in stark contrast to that of his predecessor Zdenek Zeman who forced his players to go through "wash out" -- a period when their bodies were totally cleansed of fat by a diet of broiled vegetables with boiled potatoes.

"That kind of diet does not work for footballers," says Professor Cama. "Starving the system of fat and then giving it sudden blasts of carbohydrates might work for some sports where you need short burst of energy but for football you need a more balanced diet," he says.

While the new regime appears to have been welcomed by the Lazio squad it will be a shock to former Lazio striker Beppe Signori who penned the recipe book "The Italian Footballer's Diet."

The book was translated into English and aimed to teach English players, notorious for their diet of steak and chips, the benefits of pasta and mineral water. A number of Italian players who played in England, such as Fabrizio Ravanelli, complained about the food offered to them by their clubs and expressed surprise that premier league players ate hamburgers and drank alcoholic beverages. Food has since become a sensitive issue in English football. Former England international Paul Gascoigne found himself heavily criticised after he was photographed eating a kebab sandwich the night before a game.