Italy coach Roberto Mancini, suffering from attacking problems ahead of their Euro 2024 qualifiers against England and Malta later this month, has announced he has recalled Italian-Argentine Mateo Retegui.
The 23-year-old striker plays for Club Atlético Tigre, from Buenos Aires, on loan from Boca Juniors. He is currently the top scorer, with six goals in the first seven rounds.
Born in Argentina, Retegui has an Italian passport due to his grandfather’s Sicilian origin, his father told Italian media.
Mateo Retegui’s name has been circulating in the Italian press for weeks and Mancini confirmed that he had “already been called up” for the games against England (March 23) and Malta (March 26).
“We’ve been following him for a long time. He’s been a starter for two years in the Argentine championship and has qualities that, unfortunately, we lack at the moment”, he explained during a program on DAZN.
“We thought he wouldn’t want to come. On the contrary, he said yes at the time and we called him up,” added Mancini, who will release the full list of players called up for the next two games of the European champions on Friday.
Italy has suffered for years from a shortage of striker strikers and relies heavily on the inspiration of Lazio’s Ciro Immobile (who is 33 years old, has 55 caps for Italy and scored 15 goals).
The other possible ‘number 9’ players are injured or in a bad phase, some of them without starting for their clubs, such as Giacomo Raspadori (23 years old, 17 caps for the national team, 5 goals), Andrea Belotti (29 years old, 44 caps for the national team, 12 goals), Gianluca Scamacca (24 years old, 9 caps, no goals scored) and Moise Kean (23 years old, 12 caps, 4 goals).
Source: Gazetaesportiva
Kingston is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
