The 26-year-old defender, born in Barcelona to an Italian father and an Argentinian mother, is waiting for the papers to join the Albiceleste.
The number of Argentine-born footballers who have represented various teams around the world is enormous and includes everything from names who would never have had the real opportunity to play for the national team to world champions who had worn the Albiceleste before. The opposite case, on the other hand, has occurred very few times in history: in a country of inexhaustible talent, the current world champion has never had to import players from other countries.
However, for some time now the list of foreign called started to grow exponentially. And the reason behind this trend has a first and last name: the AFA Scouting Department.
The organization, founded in 2020 on the initiative of youth team coordinator Bernardo Romeo, and led by Juan Martín Tassi, aims to recruit footballers who left the country at a very young age and fall outside the usual radar or have a different nationality of birth. but can legally represent the national team because they are children or grandchildren of Argentinians.
So it was that footballers such as Nico Paz, the brothers Valentín and Franco Carboni, Luka Romero and – the most resonant example of all – Alejandro Garnacho had recently turned to the youth teams or to the Major League. And now, in view of the double qualifying date for the 2026 World Cup, a new player could participate, this time much more surprising: right back Pablo Maffeo.
Source: Goal