Mateo Retegui’s Meteoric Rise: How An Argentina Nobody Became Italy’s Best Striker

Mateo Retegui’s story is proof that talent knows no borders. With 11 goals in 12 games he tops the Serie A scoring charts. We examine the data behind his remarkable start for Atalanta.

Italian football must be thanking its lucky stars that Mateo Retegui’s great-grandparents were from Sicily. For it is only through descent that Retegui – born in Argentina in 1999 – is eligible to play for the Italian national team. And it’s only really thanks to the foresight of former Italy coach, Roberto Mancini that Retegui is on their radar at all.

But now, a year and a half since his surprise national team call-up for Italy’s Euro 2024 qualification campaign, that radar is pinging all over the place. The alarm bells are going. Retegui is the leading scorer in Serie A, and his rise has been nothing short of meteoric.

The 25-year-old began his senior career in his country of birth at Boca Juniors, who signed him at youth level from River Plate. However, it was during a loan stint at Tigre that he truly shone, finishing the 2022 Argentine Primera División as top goalscorer.

At the same time, Mancini was trying to rebuild his national team from a disastrous 2022 World Cup qualification campaign. Italy had scored just 13 goals in their eight qualification games and were seriously lacking a goalscoring threat. Moise Kean, Ciro Immobile and Giovanni Di Lorenzo had top-scored in that campaign with just two goals apiece.

And so, despite calls to do otherwise, Mancini turned his sights further afield. He took a punt on the unknown, Argentina-born striker, selecting Retegui for Italy’s Euro 2024 qualifiers against England and Malta in spring 2023.

It proved to be a masterstroke. Retegui scored in both games. Mancini’s risk had paid off handsomely.

Those performances earned Retegui a permanent move to the continent in the summer of 2023, with Genoa snapping him up for €15 million. Just as he did for the national team, Retegui hit the ground running, scoring within 30 seconds of his debut for the club in the first round of the Coppa Italia. He couldn’t quite capitalise on that start though, with injuries limiting him to only seven goals in 26 starts.

But despite playing just 65% of available minutes in Serie A last season, Retegui still led all Genoa players for shots per 90 (2.6), and was second in expected goals per 90 (0.24) behind Albert Gudmundsson (0.29). It hinted at the promise that Retegui shows as a traditional number nine who comes alive in the box.

And so when Atalanta lost first-choice forward Gianluca Scammaca to a serious injury on the eve of this season, they wasted no time at all in finding his replacement. It took them just three days to announce the acquisition of Retegui for €25m.

And what a signing he’s been so far. With 11 goals in 12 games, Retegui tops the Serie A scoring charts. In fact, only two players across Europe’s top five leagues – Robert Lewandowski at Barcelona and Erling Haaland at Man City – have netted more than him so far in 2024-25.

But given he’s completed 90 minutes just once, Retegui has played far fewer minutes than both Lewandowski and Haaland, as well as Harry Kane and Omar Marmoush.

Take into account the time he’s actually been on the pitch and only two players – Dani Olmo and Jhon Durán – are scoring more often in the top five leagues than the Italian. Plus, those are two players who have been able to come off the bench and make an impact in short bursts.

His shot map for the season is a thing of beauty. And that’s for two main reasons.

One is the sheer volume of attempts. At 4.7 per 90, Retegui is shooting more regularly than any other player in Serie A.

The second is where those shots come from. Thirty-seven of his 41 overall attempts have come from inside the box, and the vast majority within the width of the goalposts.

Shooting from such good locations with such regularity is a surefire method for success, and his xG output bears that out. Retegui’s xG per 90 of 0.82 trails only Tammy Abraham and Moise Kean in Serie A, while only four players can better his 26.8% shot conversion rate. His instinctive positioning in the penalty box and ability to get into shooting positions makes him a constant threat.

Retegui plays on the line of the last defence and demands the ball is played in behind. The below examples are just a small selection of the great central positions he takes up between opposition central defenders.

In a few of these images, Retegui is demanding a cross into the box. And given his strength in the air, you can understand why. The summer signing has already scored three towering headers this season, each from a distance he had no right to score from. No other player has more than his three headed goals or 12 headed shots in Serie A, while only Duván Zapata (1.5) has attempted more headed shots per 90 minutes than Retegui’s 1.4

Acting as the focal point of Gasperini’s 3-4-2-1, Retegui also boasts surprising finesse, and is capable of dropping deeper, particularly into the half-spaces, to help facilitate his side’s build-up play.

The striker receives 14.3 progressive passes per 90 minutes, four more than any other striker in the division. As the map of those passes shows above, these aren’t simply long balls played up to him – only 14% of the progressive passes he’s received fall under that category. Instead, these are balls fizzed into him with his back to goal, and Retegui has impressive strength and technical capability to hold on to the ball and bring teammates into play.

To illustrate that, we can look at his involvement in Atalanta’s open-play sequences. He has been involved in the attacking build-up to 14 shots for Atalanta, a tally that no other striker in the league can better. He’s also created 10 chances in open play, with only Marcus Thuram, Lautaro Martínez (16 each) and Ange-Yoan Bonny (13) creating more.

But let’s not forget that fundamentally, Retegui is an instinctive, clinical striker. He’s not even taken a second touch for nine of his 11 goals thus far, striking the ball first time to score. That means 81.8% of his strikes have been first-time finishes. Sure, two of his goals have been penalties, but even removing spot-kicks from the list below would keep him in second.  

Off the ball, he also does a job. Gasperini’s sides are well known for their quick transitions into a high press, looking to counter-press as soon as they lose possession. This is designed to disrupt the opponent’s build-up play and force turnovers in advanced areas.

That’s an area of the game that might well be new to Retegui, but nonetheless he has the physical attributes to play his role in it. He is currently averaging 30.8 off-ball pressures in the final third this season in Serie A – the third most of any player in the division. His pressure map shows a hive of activity across all areas in the final third.

Retegui is part of an Atalanta side who have already plundered 31 goals in their 12 Serie A games. That’s five more than the next-best team in Italy (Internazionale on 26). Another goal against Parma on Saturday would set a new club record for goals scored after 13 games of a Serie A campaign.

Gasperini’s side are on fire. They’ve won their last six Serie A matches, while the only time they’ve had a longer run in the competition was between February and July 2020 (nine). With seven goals and three assists in that run, Retegui has been absolutely vital.

Retegui recently led the line for Italy in their Nations League tussles against Belgium and France, and started all but one of their games during the campaign as Italy qualified for the competition’s latter stages. It’s taken just 18 months for Mateo Retegui to go from a name nobody had heard of to his national team’s first-choice striker.

Throw in the fact that he’s already the top scorer in Italy’s top flight and Retegui’s rise has been astronomic. The one question that remains is how high can he go?

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