Mexican striker Santiago Gim\u00e9nez is fulfilling a childhood dream with AC Milan and hopes to follow in the footsteps of his idols as he prepares to face his former club, Feyenoord, in the first leg of the UEFA Champions League playoff round on Wednesday at De Kuip stadium.<\/p>\n
Gim\u00e9nez joined Milan on the final day of the winter transfer window earlier this month, replacing Spanish striker \u00c1lvaro Morata, who moved to Galatasaray.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old forward has already made a strong impression on Milan fans. In his debut in the Coppa Italia against Roma, he provided an assist to Portuguese teammate Jo\u00e3o F\u00e9lix, who also arrived from Chelsea. He then scored his first goal for Milan in a Serie A match against Empoli on Saturday.<\/p>\n
After coming off the bench in both matches, Gim\u00e9nez is expected to start against a struggling Feyenoord side, which recently dismissed coach Brian Priske, who had replaced Arne Slot after Slot moved to Liverpool at the start of the season.<\/p>\n
In a recent interview with Milan\u2019s official media, Gim\u00e9nez expressed mixed emotions about facing his former club: \u201cThere are so many emotions involved. Honestly, I wanted Milan to play against Feyenoord because if I had stayed at Feyenoord, I would\u2019ve been playing against the team I always dreamed of joining.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued, \u201cBut now I\u2019m at Milan, and it\u2019s going to be special because I\u2019ll get to see my family in Rotterdam and revisit a club that means a lot to me. It\u2019s a chance to say goodbye to a team that gave me so many great memories.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gim\u00e9nez has been a lifelong admirer of Italian football and a devoted AC Milan fan. The club had initially targeted him last summer before eventually signing Morata.<\/p>\n
Milan secured Gim\u00e9nez for approximately $33 million after he scored 65 goals in 105 matches for Feyenoord, helping them win the Dutch league title in 2023 and the KNVB Cup last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything worked out exactly as I hoped,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve followed Milan since I was a kid. It\u2019s the team I\u2019ve always loved, and I grew up watching legends like Kak\u00e1, Beckham, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Pirlo, and Gattuso. That entire generation of players made the world fall in love with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cThis was always my dream when I was younger. So when Milan called, I told myself: I can\u2019t miss this opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gim\u00e9nez even has childhood photos of himself wearing an AC Milan jersey, as well as one with his football idol, Kak\u00e1, whom he describes as his \u201crole model.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mexican striker Santiago Gim\u00e9nez is fulfilling a childhood dream with AC Milan and hopes to follow in the footsteps of his idols as he prepares to face his former club, Feyenoord, in the first leg of the UEFA Champions League playoff round on Wednesday at De Kuip stadium. Gim\u00e9nez joined Milan on the final day …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42701"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42703,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42701\/revisions\/42703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}