Mateo Retegui is the striker of Club Atlético Tigrein which he is the current leader of the list of scorers in the First Division of Argentina with 6 goals. Born in the Argentine town of San FernandoAt 23, he can boast of having gone through River Plate, the team of his heart, and Boca Júniors, with which he debuted in the First Division in 2018, replacing Carlos Tévez. In 2019 he left the Casa Amarrilla on loan to Estudiantes de la Plata, where he offered a good performance scoring goals with Pincha, especially after the arrival of Gaby Milito. In 2020 he went to Talleres de Córdoba and since February 2022 he has been Tigre’s starting striker, scoring 29 goals in 46 games so far.
Predestined to play field hockey
Retegui began playing field hockey, how could it be otherwise. His father Carlos ‘Chapa’ Retegui is an institution in this sport in Argentina, as he was a player for the National Team for 17 years, played in three Olympic Games and was a three-time Pan American champion, although the zenith when he won silver in London 2012 with the women’s team and gold in Rio 2016 as men’s coach. Her mother, María de la Paz Grandoli, was international in the same sport with the Lionesses winning the first Junior World Cup that was played, and her sister Micalea was silver at the Tokyo 2020 Games in the same sport. Carlos was predestined to dedicate himself to hockey and came to play games with the Argentine youth team, but soccer threw him more.
Mateo has an Italian passport since his maternal grandfather Angelo Dimarco is of Sicilian origin, specifically from Canicattì, in the province of Agrigento. In fact, Mateo was in Italy in 2006, when his father lived in Sardinia in 2006, training Suelli Cagliari. That alibi has allowed Alberto Mancini to summon him for the matches of this qualifying window for the next Euro Cup. A call highly criticized in Italy, because the young man does not speak Italian and does not even know the Italian anthem, as was demonstrated in the matches against England and Malta. Circumstance that has generated much criticism on social networks. Retegui is the 24th Argentine footballer to wear the Azzurri, a list that recently included names such as Mauro Camoranesi, Cristian Ledesma, Daniel Osvaldo, Gabriel Paletta, Ezequiel Schelotto and Franco Vázquez.
‘Chapita’ Retegui was on Scaloni’s list, but the Argentine coach was clear about it: “I hope Retegui does well with Italy- he warned after knowing his summons. I can’t tell him not to go because maybe I can call him up with Argentina. And if I don’t do it later? He cut him off and was not convinced that he had a place here. In the future we will see if I was right or not.”
the gift of goal
For his part, Mancini is very clear about the reasons for his bet: “Mateo is a goalscorer. He has the ability to score and that’s not little. He still has to learn a lot of things because he has just arrived at a new football, with new teammates. But the gift of the goal and that is a very important quality”. Speech supported by Retegui himself scoring the only goal for Italy against England in the defeat in Naples (1-2), where he made his debut last Thursday, and repeating in the victory in Malta (0-2) to open the scoring. Retegui thus joins the short list of players who scored in their first two games with Italy: Giorgio Chinaglia (1972), Enrico Chiesa (1996) and Riccardo Orsolini (2020).
Retegui has started the season in Argentina brilliantly, scoring six of the 11 goals that Tigre has scored in the eight rounds of this first phase of the championship. Something that has aroused the interest of teams like the Atletico Madridwhere Diego Pablo Simeone and Andrea Berta follow closely. A hard-working and aggressive striker, very much the profile of a player that Cholo likes, who handles his 1.86 with solvency with speed and has a great passing game. His father, who regularly works with Carlos Tévez, describes him as “a striker similar to Haaland. They have always liked powerful and technical strikers like Vieri, Van Basten or Batistuta. He now looks at Ibrahimovic and Haaland. He is ambidextrous and very powerful with his head. Before, as a boy, he played midfielder, as a midfielder ahead of the defense, but in Boca they moved him to play up front and he has grown in that position”.
Atlético, Inter, Lazio…
Atlético is not the only one that has set its sights on Retegui. Lazio and Inter, after his explosion with Italy, are already probing the possible signing of him. His file is owned by Boca Júniors, but Tigre, where he is on loan, has a clause according to which he can exercise a purchase option for 50% of the pass by paying 2.3 million dollars. The starting price of the player, before the call with Italy and his two goals, was around 10 million euros. He now he seems to have shot himself and there is already talk of something more than twenty.
