JAKARTA - The name Mateo Retegui recently stole the attention of football fans, especially in Italy. He emerged as a solution to the lack of choice in the front lines of the Italian national team.
The 23-year-old scored in his first two appearances for Italy, including one in a 2-1 loss to England in the Euro 2024 qualifier, a few days ago.
He became Gli Azzurri's new hope in terms of breaking into the opponent's goal. However, there is an interesting fact behind the new star of the Italian national team.
Retegui, who is currently on loan at the Argentine club Club Atletico Tigre from Boca Juniors, has never even played or lived in Italy.
In fact, according to CBS, the player who was born in Argentina, can't even speak Italian!
When Ciro Immobile was injured and Gianluca Scamacca warmed the bench more at West Ham, Italy coach Roberto Mancini was forced to look for potential stars to be called overseas.
He then found Retegui who was born 12 miles north of Buenos Aires. The player has the right to play for Italy through the blood of his mother's grandfather.
His father, Carlos, played hockey for Argentina in three different Olympic games, with Retegui himself also said he had played.
Retegui's recent performance was difficult for Mancini to ignore. Since joining Tigre on loan from Argentine giant Boca Juniors last February, he has scored 29 goals in 51 games, including six of the eight games of the season.
That's enough for Retegui, who represents Argentina at the junior level, to be called up to the senior Italian team for Euro 2024 qualifiers against England and Malta.
By doing so, Mancini opposes one of his own beliefs from previous years.
"A year ago, I said that (only) players born in Italy were allowed to play for the national team. But the world has changed. Every national team in Europe and the world generally has players from abroad or from other countries," the former Inter Milan and Manchester City boss told the Times recently.
Mancini's efforts were immediately repaid with two goals scored by Retegui. First, through a very cold finish against England in Naples last Thursday, followed by a beautiful header on Sunday against Malta.
He was just the fourth player to score in their first two games for Italy. This shows that never playing in Italy and not speaking language is not a problem for Retegui.
He could be Mancini's long-term solution up front when he was about to reset his team following an embarrassing failure in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.
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