The first Italian player since 2002, Retegui scored 2+ goals in two World Cup qualifying matches.

In the European group stage of the World Cup preliminaries, Italy defeated Israel 3-0 at home. In this game, the home team's forward Retegui performed well. He scored twice to help the team win a big victory.

In this World Cup preliminaries, Retegui scored at least two goals against Estonia and Israel respectively. He became the first Italian player to score 2+ goals multiple times in a single World Cup preliminaries after Inzaghi (three games) and Del Piero (two games) in the 2002 World Cup preliminaries.