GdS: ‘Santi’s signature’ – Gimenez ends drought and hopes to turn a corner

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·28 April 2025

GdS: ‘Santi’s signature’ – Gimenez ends drought and hopes to turn a corner

In addition to obtaining another clean sheet, Santiago Gimenez’s goal late on was one of the very positive notes from the win over Venezia.

As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) write this morning, for the first time in his career Gimenez had arrived at a stadium by boat, an effect that seemed to have disoriented him. After coming off the bench he initially seemed lost at sea, wasteful of chances to kill the game off.

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The location in the lagoon had also surprised his predecessor Olivier Giroud a lot, who filmed the team’s landing at the Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo with a series of Instagram videos. Zlatan Ibrahimovic was less surprised, as he scored a goal in the 2021-22 season at the same ground.

Yesterday, the Senior Advisor Ibrahimovic was in the stands and a few seats to the left sat Patrick Kluivert, former Milan striker and now coach of Indonesia (it is likely he was there to watch Jay Idzes, of Venezia).

Returning to Gimenez, it is time to choose whether to try to imitate Ibrahimovic or the Dutchman, who scored just nine goals in the Milan jersey in 1997-98. Santi for the moment has risen to four: against Empoli, Hellas Verona and yesterday in the league, plus Feyenoord in the Champions League.

Striker’s instinct

Yesterday’s goal was a strange one, a perfect trajectory at first sight, lucky if seen again in slow motion. Gimenez runs deep to meet Tijjani Reijnders’ long ball, lets it bounce a couple of times and then goes with a lob to beat Radu.

In slow motion: Gimenez hits with his calf and comes out a perfect lob. Santi goes to celebrate with the fans by clapping his hand on the club crest sewn on the shirt. His teammates celebrate with him, Gabbia extends the celebration on social media: “Well done Hermano!”.

It is a goal that puts him back in line with the expectations of the club and the people: the rest of the match had, in fact, been a bit of a disaster: an easy header that went wide, a wasted counterattack, 14 balls played of which six were lost, then three fouls committed.

He also had two imprecise close-range passes, one of which would have put Rafael Leao through on the counterattack. The moment is what it is, it is no coincidence that the last goal, before yesterday, dates back to over two months ago: February 18th against Feyenoord.

His last start in Serie A was the one in mid-March at home against Como, with the comeback completed when Santi was already on the bench. Before yesterday’s 26 minutes he had played seven versus Atalanta and none in the return derby.

A turning point?

At the end of the match Conceiçao revealed another thing that the striker did: “He is aware that he is not at his best, and this is the basis for growth. At the end of the match he came to me straight away to tell me that it had not gone well and that the goal was still important.

“That’s what he has to do: highlight the positive things, not dwell on the negative. He knows he has to look at what he can do, how he has to work for the team with and without the ball. The goals will come because he is good and the group knows his qualities. We have faith in him.”

The doors of the Rossoneri attack have been more revolving than ever: Alvaro Morata has come and gone, Gimenez the same, and so have Tammy Abraham and Luka Jovic. Yesterday, back pain suffered during the warm-up took the starter Luka off the scene.

Abraham in his place did very little and came off midway through the second half for Santi. Was the touch at the end of the match enough to get back into the swing of things? It is certainly a jolt to try and be exploited in the next matches, and beyond that.