Scaloni’s strong response to Mateo Retegui’s call to the national team

The decision of Matthew Retegui, scorer of the last and current Lega Professionisti with the Tigre shirt, accepting the call-up of the Italian national team was one of the topics of the press conference at the Ezeiza headquarters. and the coach Lionel Scaloni explained and argued why he didn’t intervene when he found out he had Robert Mancini the one who mentioned him for the double round of the Euro 2024 Qualifiers, where the Azzurri will face England AND malt.

“Let’s hope that if he plays in Italy he’ll do well, it doesn’t make sense to think if he was in Argentina, because at this time we were not convinced to summon him. From there maybe after that he could be a great player for the Italian national team, but the reality is that today we can’t cut him off by telling him that ‘maybe’ he can come to Argentina. What if he doesn’t come later? I cut him off,” his reply began.

And he concluded: “There are moments when you have to think about the boy and we have players in that position who we think are good. Later the future will be seen and whether I hit it or not I hit it“.

Retegui, 23 years old and on loan to Tigre from Boca, has an Italian passport thanks to his maternal grandfather originally from Canicatti, and cannot be chosen by Argentina if he plays at least one second in one of the two official matches he has to anticipate the Azzura this week.

Scaloni’s reference to competition in the position pointed directly Lautaro Martinez (Inter), Giuliano Alvarez (Manchester City), John Simon (Naples of Italy) e Joachim Correa (Inter), who was excluded from the final list for the Qatar 2022 World Cup at the last minute due to an injury.

“We only have three forwards. Scamacca doesn’t have 90′ ​​legs. Gnonto always plays but in Italy they didn’t want him. We know Retegui these days. We’ve been following him for some time, he has great qualities, he’s young, we didn’t think he would say yes, but on the contrary. Young, he can improve a lot, smart, nice physique”said Roberto Mancini, DT of Italy, justifying the call of the Argentine.

And he added: “I don’t know why but there are few Italians who score goals. If we look at the top scorer rankings, the first Italian striker is (Ciro) Immobile”. With Retegui he can have a specialist, since in the last professional football championship he became the absolute leader of that article after the collection 17 points. In the current season he leads the standings with 6 celebrations in 8 games played.