‘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.

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.