A former manager of Italy, Antonio Conte, was complaining long and loud about the players at his disposal last weekend.
Those gripes have set Conte on a fast-track to departure from Tottenham Hotspur, whose first-teamers he offended, and, quite likely, on a path home to Italy for his next club job.
There, he might find in the quality of native goalscorers something to criticise, too. The coach who now occupies Conte’s former role in charge of the national squad, Roberto Mancini, would have been forgiven for smiling on hearing him bemoan his playing staff at Spurs.
What would Mancini give for a centre-forward like Tottenham’s Harry Kane, who will be leading England’s forward line against Italy on Thursday evening? It’s the standout fixture as the qualifying process for next summer’s European Championship begins, a re-run of the final of the last Euros, which Italy won, on penalties at Wembley.
Both nations have been through ups and downs since. Kane has become his country’s joint all-time record goalscorer but also suffered the heartbreak of missing a penalty in a World Cup quarter-final against France that, had he converted, might have preserved his and his country’s dream of taking their incremental successes of the last five years – a World Cup semi in 2018; a Euros silver medal three summers later – a step higher.
Italy, meanwhile, contrived to follow up Mancini’s stellar achievement in triumphing at those Euros with a humiliation. They failed to reach the World Cup in Qatar at all, eliminated in the semi-final of the play-offs thanks to a 1-0 home loss to North Macedonia. A late goal on the counter-attack shocked the Italians, who had dominated possession but lacked precision or ruthlessness in their finishing.
England train for Italy clash - in pictures
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Left to right: England's Jordan Henderson, Harry Kane and Harry Maguire during training at St George's Park in Burton-on-Trent, on March 21, 2023, ahead of their Euro 2024 qualifier against Italy. AFP -
Left to right: James Maddison, Kyle Walker, Ivan Toney, Kieran Trippier, Phil Foden, John Stones, Declan Rice and Luke Shaw during training. AFP -
Left to right: England's Kieran Trippier, Jack Grealish, Jordan Henderson, Reece James and Kalvin Phillips training at St George's Park. AFP -
Recalled striker Ivan Toney during training. AFP -
England's Jordan Henderson, Kalvin Phillips and Jude Bellingham during training. PA -
Left to right: England's Luke Shaw, Phil Foden, Reece James and Ivan Toney. AFP -
England's Jack Grealish and James Maddison at St George's Park. PA -
England's Kalvin Phillips and Jude Bellingham during training. PA -
Left to right: England's Declan Rice, Jack Grealish, Jordan Henderson, Reece James and Kalvin Phillips. AFP -
England goalkeeper Fraser Forster during training at St George's Park. PA -
England captain Harry Kane. PA -
Left to right: England's Luke Shaw, Bukayo Saka and Kalvin Phillips. PA -
New England coach Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, centre, alongside Harry Maguire, left, and Ivan Toney. PA -
England's Conor Gallagher during training. PA -
England players during training at St George's Park. AFP -
England's Jordan Pickford during a training session at St George's Park, Burton-on-Trent. PA -
England attacker Jack Grealish during training. Reuters -
Left to right: England's Kieran Trippier, Phil Foden, John Stones and Jordan Henderson. PA -
England's Jordan Henderson, Harry Kane and Harry Maguire during training session. PA -
England's Phil Foden during training. PA
It is a recurring issue. Italy have nobody like Kane, no world-class penalty-box predator with an equal talent for unlocking opposition defences with his passing from deeper positions. They have eager and rugged enough No 9s in Lazio’s Ciro Immobile, 33 and reliably effective in Serie A, and Roma’s 29-year-old Andrea Belotti, but they can call on neither of them this evening in Naples.
Those absences, and the so-far unsuccessful search for a central striker who might serve Italy for years to come, worry Mancini.
“We have serious problems up front,” he said, listing the injury problems that keep Immobile, Bellotti and 23-year-old Napoli striker Giacomo Raspadori from his squad.
He also referenced the limited time on the pitch Gianluca Scamacca has been given at West Ham United who the striker, 24, joined last summer, and for whom he scored the most recent of his three Premier League goals back in early January.
In pursuit of solutions, Mancini has spread his net wide. Selected in the squad for the England match and Sunday’s fixture against Malta is 17-year-old Simone Pafundi, of Udinese, whose career total of Serie A minutes, across three appearances off the bench, amounts to just over half-an-hour’s action.
Mancini, though, sees something in Pafundi. He capped him, as a substitute, in a friendly last November.
What Mancini does not see in Pafundi, a diminutive, skilful footballer ideally played off a centre-forward, is a target man. Auditioning for that role over this international week is a striker reeled in to the Azzurri set-up from afar.
Mateo Retegui was born in Argentina, has only ever played professionally in Argentinian domestic football but qualifies for Italian citizenship through a maternal grandparent. He is 23, and despite his 29 goals in 51 matches for mid-table Buenos Aires club Tigre, has never been capped at senior level by Argentina.
Mancini approached Retegui and admits he was surprised when the forward said he would be prepared to commit to Italy and rule out a future playing for Argentina.
That’s not least because Retegui comes from a famous Argentinian sporting family. His sister won a silver medal at hockey at the Tokyo Olympics for their country of birth. Mateo’s father Carlos coached that hockey team, as he did Argentina’s men’s hockey gold medallists at the Rio de Janeiro Games.
If Retegui feels like an outsider, joining up with the European champions – and effectively rejecting the reigning world champions, Argentina – it may not last for too long. He may soon feel very at home in Italy. Both Inter Milan and AC Milan are interested in signing Retegui, who is on loan at Tigre from Boca Juniors.
Lionel Scaloni, Argentina’s manager, predicts Retegui “will do well for Italy,” even though Scaloni had passed on the idea of picking him for Argentina.
“We have a lot of players we value very highly in the position,” said Scaloni, thinking of Julian Alvarez and Lautaro Martinez, among others who in December had the privilege of winning the World Cup alongside Lionel Messi.
