“Summoning other natives is a possibility. Everyone does it, we will too“: Roberto Mancini at the end of the Malta-Italy game sent out a very clear message regarding the possibility of calling players who are only Italian with a passport to join the national team. An opportunity but also a necessity given the difficulties faced by young Italians in finding adequate space in their clubs in the top flight.
“The natives are a value of a sporting nature, but not only sportingwhich must always be welcomed – underlines the minister for sport and young people, Andrea Abodi – I still believe in the possibility of extracting what is too often in Serie A on the bench: our Springs are unbearably too full of foreigners, not because there are too many foreigners but because there are no Italians”.
In the history of blue football there is no shortage of natives who made fans dream, also because they were often strikers and made fans dream with goals, such as the Argentine Julio Libonatimatador with 15 goals in 17 games at the turn of the 30s. From Sivori to Altafini to Sormani, up to Camoranesi (world champion in 2006), a Osvaldo, Eder and Thiago Motta, Jorginho and Emerson (European champions in 2021), just to name a few, the gallery is long, as is the list of natives in the notebooks of coach Mancini and his collaborators.
Not only Retegui, therefore, in addition to the Club Atlético Tigre striker, there are several profiles that could be suitable for the national team. Starting with the Brazilian from Lecce Gabriel Strefezza, Italian passport (his great-grandparents are Sicilians from Caltanissetta), one of the revelations of this championship. And also Bruno Zapelli, born in 2002attacking midfielder of Belgrano, an Argentine first division club, called up by the Under 21 coach, Paolo Nicolato.
Among the ‘papable’ natives there is Sebastian Driussi, 27-year-old striker, with an Italian passport, having Friulian origins from his father’s family and later emigrating to Argentina: he is currently with Austin, in the US Major League. Or even the midfielder Matthias Soulé Malvano, 20 yet to be fulfilled, mother and grandparents descendants of Italian immigrants in Argentina, hit the headlines two years ago for the call ofl ct Scaloni, who wanted to see him despite his very young age and belonging only to the second team of Juventus: with the black and white shirt he boasts 17 appearances and a goal against Sampdoria. He remains eligible for the blue squad having never played for the senior Seleccion.
Nicolás Capaldo is 24 years old, he grew up footballing in Boca Juniors, he is a very interesting joker and is now one of the pillars of Red Bull Salzburg, the reigning Austrian champion team that brought him to the old continent two summers ago, for a figure equal to around four million EUR. Keep an eye on the central midfielders Giuliano Galoppo of the San Paolo and also Juan Sebastian Sforzathe latter fulcrum of the midfield of Newell’s Old Boys. The list is long, Mancini browses it.