Well, I found a solution.
I'll post it just in case anyone runs into my same problem.
I started from scratch using Pi Imager again. This time tho, I've been using the super magic hidden shortcut Shit+Ctrl-X to bring up a hid option panel!
Here I setup the wifi and the country. Then I flashed the sd.
When you first run the system inserting the sd back on the Pi, you'll have no wifi again for some reason. The system suggests to set the country (again) in the rasp-config, just click ok, and lo and behold, this time it works.
I could change the country to my zone, setup my wifi and access the Pi over the network connecting to \retropie
bingo.