The praise of the DT of Italy for Mateo Retegui: “It reminds me of the first Batistuta”

Matthew Retegui He made a fundamental decision in his career: he decided to accept the call to the Italian national team, giving up (if he signs three forms) the possibility of being called up to Argentina in the future. Also on Tuesday, Lionel Scaloni was very crude in referring to this issue and said he had ensured that the youngster from Tigre was not in his immediate plans for him. But yesterday the one who had more than appreciative words was Roberto Mancini, DT of the Azzurri who compared the 9 to a forward who made great history in the Argentine national team and in his time in the Italian championship: Gabriel Omar Batistuta.

It is worth noting that Retegui was not called up to any matches in his first call-up to the national team. Despite not having played the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, we are talking about the latest European champion who will start defending his title today in Naples and against top-level rivals like England, in what will be a repeat of the last final of the Eurocup.

In this level duel Retegui could make his debut for the Azzurri. 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 has become accustomed to being the protagonist but is not one of the five great players of our country) as well as not having never played in Serie A. However, after the crisis that caused his elimination at the last World Cup, Mancini called him up due to the lack of offensive variations suffered by the national team.

“I don’t want to sound exaggerated, but it reminds me a bit of Batistuta when he came to Italy… He’s young, he needs to get to know his teammates, it’s not easy,” Mancini declared in the press conference before the duel with the English.

The coach referred to Batistuta, the striker who moved 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 road is different from that of Bati, but in Italy they have already set their sights on him. In Italy they say that Inter have set their sights on him and that they believe he can follow a path similar to that of Lautaro Martínez. But he also looks at the other team from the city, Milan and the other big names in the European country. The less optimistic see a similarity between Mateo and the German Denis Tank, who also had a good career in Europe.

“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 some time.“Mancini assured, anticipating that he will have patience with the Argentine forward.

Mancini is rebuilding the Azzurri team after his absence from the World Cup in Qatar, the second consecutive loss that the Azzurri, four times world champions, have lost.

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 on the desire we put into it,” said Mancini.

Mancini recalled Gianluca Vialli

The coach once again remembered 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 exciting because it will be the first match without Luca. We were very lucky to have him, first as a teammate and then in the national team,” said Mancini.

“You all know what kind of person he was. Obviously he’s very sad, but people like him are always there, he’s kind of immortal,” she concluded.

With information from EFE