Mateo Retegui
made a key decision in his career: he decided to accept the call to the Italian National Team, resigning (if he signs three forms) the chance to be called to Argentina in the future.
Even on Tuesday, Lionel Scaloni was very crude when referring to this issue and said he assured that the young man from Tigre was not in his immediate plans.
But yesterday the one who had more than appreciative words was Roberto Mancini, DT of the 'Azzurra' who compared the 9 with a striker who made great history in the Argentine National Team and in his time in the Italian league: Gabriel Omar Batistuta.
It is worth clarifying that Retegui was not called up to any game in his first call to the Italian National Team.
Despite not having played in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, we are talking about the last European champion who will start defending his title today in Naples and against a high-end rival like England, in what will be a repetition of the last final of the Eurocup.
In this level duel Retegui could make his debut at the Azzurra.
The peculiarity of the striker's squad is not only that he was born in Argentina, but that these days he plays for Tigre (a club that got used to being the protagonist but is not one of the five great soccer players in our country) in addition to never having played in Serie A.
However, after the crisis that caused the elimination to the last World Cup, Mancini summoned him due to the lack of offensive variants suffered by the Nazionale.
Mancini has faith in Retegui.
"
I don't want to seem exaggerated, but it reminds me a bit of Batistuta when he arrived in Italy...
He's young, he needs to know his teammates, it's not easy," Mancini declared at the press conference prior to the match against the English.
The coach referred to Batistuta, the striker who jumped from Boca to Calcio in 1990 and spent more than a decade in Italy playing for Fiorentina, Roma and Inter.
It is clear that Retegui's path is different from Bati's, but in Italy they already set their sights on him.
In Italy they say that Inter set their sights on him and that they believe he can follow a path similar to that of Lautaro Martínez.
But he is also watched by the other team in the city, Milan and other greats from the European country.
The less optimistic see a similarity between Mateo and the German Denis Tank, which also had a good career in Europe.
Retegui was a cover at La Gazzetta dello Sport.
"I don't think it's easy to come to Italy, not to a club, but to the national team.
We have a lot of faith in him, but we have to give him a little time
," Mancini said, anticipating that he will be patient with the Argentine striker.
Mancini is in a process of rebuilding the Italian team after being absent from the World Cup in Qatar, the second consecutive one that the 'Azzurra', four-time world champion, has lost.
Reteguie's central page in La Gazzetta dello Sport
In the midst of these two disappointments, Italy won the Euro 2020 title, played a year later due to the pandemic and whose final was played at Wembley.
"We want to return to the same level as when we won the Eurocup and that depends on us and the desire we put into it," Mancini said.
Mancini remembered Gianluca Vialli
The coach once again recalled Gianluca Vialli, his former teammate at the time of the player and one of his assistants in the national team, who died in January at the age of 58 from pancreatic cancer.
"It's very emotional because it will be the first game without Luca. We were very lucky to have him, first as a teammate and then in the national team," Mancini said.
"You all know what kind of person he was. Obviously it's very sad, but people like him are always there, he's a kind of immortal," he concluded.
With information from EFE
