Teenager Lee Matthews kept his composure to score the decisive penalty to put Leeds United through to today's final of the Carlsberg Cup against Liverpool after a far from satisfactory game ended in stalemate and the lottery of the penalty shoot-out.
A 79th minute goal from Rosario Aquino looked like giving Lazio a scarcely deserved win.
However, Leeds, the more enterprising of the sides for much of the match, got their reward with a dramatic last minute equaliser from Lee Bowyer to force the shoot-out.
European Championship winner Stephen McPhail got Leeds off to a poor start from the spot kicks when his first penalty was saved. That was soon forgotten when Pavel Nedved levelled the scores when he put his over the top.
Irish international Ian Harte, Derek Lilley and Matthews all scored for Leeds as did Aquino and Dario Marcholin for Lazio. But another miss by Giorgio Venturin in between gave the advantage and the match to Leeds.
Lazio started most of their expensively acquired new signings with Ivan De la Pena, Sinisa Mihaijlovic and Dejan Stankovic among them. But there was expected disappointed with Chilean Marcelo Salas, still troubled by a groin strain, not even making the bench.
Leeds enjoyed more of the first-half possession but, save for a gilt-edged chance for Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, it was the Italians' attack that created the precious few scoring chances of a disappointing 45 minutes.
Yugoslav Mihaijlovic had the first shot in anger when his well struck free-kick from some 25 yards flew a foot wide of a post in the eighth minute.
Leeds continued to keep the ball but it took them until the 41st minute to register their first effort on target.
In fairness, that should have brought a goal as Dutch World Cup striker Hasselbaink saw his shot under pressure from Giovanni Lopez, following Danny Granville's excellent cross, come back off the foot of a post.
The second-half at least began as if it would offer an improvement.
Alessandro Iannuzzi should have put Lazio in front within three minutes only he failed to get enough power onto the ball to direct his skipper Giuseppe Favalli's cross past Martyn.
Leeds' riposte was instant as Luca Marchegiani made the save of the game to parry Bowyer's shot from 16 yards over the bar for a corner.
Lazio: Marchegiani; Negro, Lopez, Mihaijlovic, Favalli; Rambardi, Stankovic, De la Pena, Nedved; Iannuzzi, Mancini. Subs: Venturin, Gottardi and Aquino for Rambaudi, Stankovic and Iannuzzi (all 53 mins.), Marcholin for De la Pena (62 mins.), Lombardi for Mihaijlovic (84 mins).
Leeds United: Martyn; Kelly, Molenaar, Radebe, Harte; Halle, Bowyer, Ribeiro, Granville; Hasselbaink, Hopkin. Subs: McPhail and Matthews for Ribeiro and Hopkin (both 74 mins.), Lilley for Hasselbaink (88 mins).
Referee: R O'Hanlon (Waterford).
