GdS: ‘It’s your game’ – how Gimenez is gearing up for the return to face Feyenoord

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·10 de febrero de 2025

GdS: ‘It’s your game’ – how Gimenez is gearing up for the return to face Feyenoord

In the run-up to the Champions League play-off tie against Feyenoord, AC Milan have an extra ally: Santiago Gimenez.

As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) write this morning, Gimenez can play a decisive double role as striker on the field and ‘adviser’ for his new team-mates and Sergio Conceiçao in the dressing room. No one knows Feyenoord like him, for obvious reasons.

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He played there until a few days ago and the mere fact that the Dutch club qualified for the play-offs is in large part thanks to the five goals and one assist he got for them in Europe this season.

On Wednesday at De Kuip he must have his emotions in check, but he knows the strengths and weaknesses of the defenders who will be called upon to mark him.

Strong bond

Gimenez is inevitably emotionally tied to Feyenoord, who bet on him and in 2022 they took him from Cruz Azul. The Mexican, after some initial difficulties, responded in a big way from January 2023 onwards: in total he scored 65 goals in 105 appearances and thus earned a Milan move.

The fact that he finds himself facing his former team-mates in his first European match for the Rossoneri immediately after moving to Italy is a twist of fate that will make the two legs even more exciting for him.

Certainly before the kick-off there will be hugs and handshakes with everyone, but even the fans – who had a good bond with him – will give him more applause than boos. Without the €28.5m plus bonuses offer accepted by Feyenoord, Gimenez would have been Milan’s opponent.

Derby d’Italia

The main opponent for Gimenez will probably be David Hancko, the central defender who was close to Juventus in the winter transfer market and who will perhaps go to Turin in the summer.

The two arrived together in Rotterdam and formed the backbone of the team which – with Arne Slot on the bench (now at Liverpool) – won the Eredivisie two years ago and the Dutch Cup last year. Santi and David have faced each other many times in training and know each other well.

This is why the Mexican will be fundamental in giving advice to new team-mates regarding former team-mates. Among the latter also Igor Paixao who is the one with whom Santi has bonded the most: the Brazilian is now the team’s top scorer with seven goals (the same as Hadj Moussa) and he will be on the left in a 4-3-3.

Who will be at the centre of the trident, in the role that Gimenez had? Julian Carranza, Argentinian by birth like the new Milan striker and another friend of his. The two have only shared the dressing room for a few months since Carranza arrived last summer from MLS, but they are still close.

His home

The Rossoneri, as per tradition, will carry out the finishing touches tomorrow morning at Milanello and not at De Kuip, a stadium which Gimenez knows well. There he beat Bayern Munich with a brace in the last home match of the first phase of the Champions League.

In the stands he will have some friends and perhaps family members even if father Christian has returned to Mexico while mother Bernarda is in Milan helping his wife Fernanda in the search for a house.

The move from Rotterdam still needs to be completed and perhaps the trip to Holland will allow the family to continue the process. Gimenez lived near the Cruise Terminal in Rotterdam, where ships to the United States depart and leave, and the famous Erasmusbrug bridge, over the Nieuwe Maas river.

In a brand new building he had an apartment where he hosted his parents, sister and friends who came to visit him from Mexico. And a few steps from home he had the Happy Italia restaurant where he often went to enjoy Italian cuisine. In Milan he is now spoiled for choice.