Retegui effect: Italy is already targeting more young Argentines to summon the Azzurra

After the successful debut that Mateo Retegui had with the Italian team, the team’s coach, Roberto Mancini, does not rule out citing more “original Argentine” players to join the squad that is disputing the Qualifiers for Euro 2024. There is even already circulating a List of possible Argentine soccer players who have an Italian passport so they can be called up in future calls.

The Italian sports newspaper Tuttosport published a report on Thursday with a list of 50 players born in Argentina, Brazil, England and France, among others, with dual nationality and who could be called up by Mancini, who this week did not hide his satisfaction with the performance that Retegui showed. The striker whose pass belongs to Boca but plays for Tigre scored two goals in his first two games for Italy against England and Malta and made it clear that he can adapt perfectly to a team that does not have a typical goalscorer like the Argentine.

The list includes 16 Argentine players, almost all under 23 years of age, whom they baptized as “Los pibes de oro” and who could be mentioned in the future, despite the fact that some of them already had a presence in the Argentine youth teams and even They have also been cited by Lionel Scaloni for a call with the Major.

The list that the Italian media released includes the footballers who still play in local clubs such as Lucas Beltrán (River); Gianluca Prestianni (Velez); Juan Sforza (Newell’s Old Boys), Gino Infantino (Rosario Central), Marco Di Cesare (Argentinos Juniors); and Julián Aude (from Lanús, recently transferred to the Los Angeles Galaxy in the US), as well as players who stood out in Argentina and have already been transferred abroad, such as Mateo Tanlongo (Sporting de Lisboa); Bruno Amione (Sampdoria); Facundo Buonanotte (Brighton); Nicolás Capaldo (Salzburg); and Lucas Roman (Barcelona). There are also promising youngsters who did not perform professionally in Argentina and who directly debuted in European football such as Valentín Carboni (Inter Milan); Franco Carboni (Monza); Isaias Delpupo (Cagliari); Tiago Geralnik (Villarreal); and Matías Soulé (Juventus).

We will have to see the reaction that the AFA takes in the face of this new problem and if Mancini finally begins to mention the different players who currently do not appear in Scaloni’s plans, but who in the future could be part of the renewal of the squad World Champion.