Carlos retegui he didn’t miss a minute of his son Mateo’s training these days in Coverciano. He is making the most of the terrace overlooking the training ground of the national team, where he is the guest of honour. Given the center forward crisis, the welcome process usually offered to the parents of new club signings has also been introduced for the national team. Protocol respected: as per practice, father Retegui says he “supports Italy” and that “there are no other teams these days”. In fact, not a national team: the family immediately accepted the call to arms of Roberto Manciniwho didn’t expect such an immediate “yes”, to enhance the boy’s talent and also launch him in Europe.
There’s nothing to be offended about but to pray that Mateo, the 23-year-old 186cm and 90kg center forward from Boca Juniors on loan to Tigre, does what he does best and that no one in Italy knows how to do anymore: score. The physique is the same as dad Carlos: square. As a hockey player, which in fact the latter was. The father was a winner in his world: he led the Argentina national field hockey team to a gold medal at the Rio 2016 Olympics, among other things. Thus Mateo was educated from an early age to sporting success and to a professional sense that differentiates him from his peers in his homeland. He abandoned the family sport to enter the River Plate youth team. He played little, but that little was enough for a Boca Juniors scout to steal him from city rivals.
LUCA TONI OF 2006
If Mateo reminds Guillermo Barros Schelotto, one of his first coaches, of Luca Toni from 2006, he reminds us of Bobo Vieri, more mobile and powerful than the nine world champion. He’s not graceful but never mind, actually, better: you need ferocity, up front in the national team, all technique and good play. Retegui has some, you can see that he comes from a dirtier football than the glossy European one. He devours the field in pressing and depth rather than playing with his back to goal. He wants to score and scores, mainly with his right foot, his strong foot: 29 goals in 50 games with the Tigre last year, 6 in 8 games in 2023 (one every 120′).
The other more sensible comparison was written in destiny. In fact, Retegui remembers the one who started his career, substituting him on the occasion of his debut with Boca on November 17, 2018, in the match won with Patronato 1-0: Carlos Tevez. Mateo Retegui is the man of the possible salvation of a role – number nine – and of a department that needs a finalizer.
Mancini’s idea, in fact, is to return to the 4-3-3 formation of the European Championship to conquer the next one as reigning champions (it starts tomorrow against England in Naples before the away game in Malta on Sunday) with a game with a high production of possession and chances, so you can’t do without the classic center forward. If anything, the problem is considering him a certain solution even before seeing him at work and then downloading him at the first opaque performance: a classic Italian story that would be better avoided, given that there are no alternatives (Scamacca plays little, Gnonto is a winger) . It would also be better to avoid the classic cliché of the national team for the Italians. Strong players are needed and Mancini, in some roles, is forced to invent them. Retegui will be blue (just let him play for a minute to preclude him from future call-ups by Argentina, which has ignored him up to now) thanks to his maternal great-grandfather (mama Maria’s grandfather) Angelo Dimarco, born in Canicattì in the province of Agrigento: a distant relative that’s more than enough in today’s globalized football, where all the big nationals naturalize players except ours. Retegui, in fact, will be “only” the 51st native to wear the national team shirt but the first to make his debut without having first played in Serie A. That’s why it’s new. We hope happy and, if so, not the last.
