"Does that look like the control of a calm player to you?" The rhetorical question (with the implied answer being no) came from Ricky Buscaglia during commentary of Milan - Bologna, after watching the replay of Santiago Gimenez’s chance around the 70th minute for the second time.
“He’s definitely not emotionally calm,” replied former striker Fabio Bazzani. You could hear the caution in their voices. They didn’t want to go too hard, as the saying goes, kicking someone while they’re down, by stressing too much how Gimenez wasted one of the most beautiful moves Milan had managed to build up to that point.
Santiago Gimenez must really step up his efforts and follow the footsteps of players who changed their game to get more recognition, as relayed via bbc football.
Samuele Ricci had skipped past Cambiaghi at midfield with an inside-out touch like an ice hockey move, as if his foot had turned into a stick, then spread the play wide to Tomori near the right touchline. Tomori lifted his head, spotted Gimenez breaking free into space alongside the defender, and picked him out first time with a splendid diagonal ball between the defense and the goalkeeper.
The ball landed on Gimenez’s favored left foot. All he had to do was control it with the instep and strike on the bounce. Close your eyes and nothing is easier to picture than a striker smashing a full-blooded shot under the crossbar.
Instead, Gimenez struggled with the control, as if the bounce carried the ball higher than he expected. As if something caught him off guard. Or as if his leg didn’t lift high enough, as though something inside him refused to properly bring the ball under control.
He seemed to stumble, the ball almost slipping past before he reached it with his left, producing a clumsy, heavy touch. There was stiffness, a slowness, that made him look awkward and forced him wide before hitting straight at Skorupski, as described by Ultimo Uomo.
And that wasn’t even the worst chance Gimenez wasted against Bologna. The worst came right before Allegri decided to take him off, maybe to spare him further damage, pulling him as if the ground had opened up beneath his feet. Yet when Gimenez left the pitch, San Siro, still without its curva, in an atmosphere that grows more apocalyptic by the week, applauded him, offering the kind of affection usually shown to the unlucky, as if it wasn’t fully his fault. But then, whose fault is it?
It was not a good weekend for Serie A strikers. Cutrone and Pellegrino failed to score for Parma, even wasting two shots in the same move against Caprile. Belotti, not worth mentioning. Vlahovic didn’t score either, despite starting again under Tudor in the first top clash of the season. Of the seven goals in Juventus-Inter, only one came from a striker, Marcus Thuram.
Moise Kean didn’t score. Neither did Piccoli nor Dzeko. Not “Taty” Castellanos, nor Pinamonti. Evan Ferguson stayed scoreless despite playing the second half, while Dovbyk watched from the bench. No goals from Keinan Davis or Meister in Pisa-Udinese, none from Castro or Dallinga. Krstovic failed to score in a 4-0 win, even missing an open goal, and when he finally did score, it was ruled out.
Aside from “Cholito” Simeone (statistically someone had to score) and Rasmus Hojlund (new arrival, perhaps not yet infected with the same virus as the others), no striker in the league played well. But think about it: how often does a striker truly play well? Well in the way we expect strikers to play?
Writing about Hojlund a few weeks ago, I said that for a striker a goal is "evidence of a privileged connection with something invisible," and that when the goals dry up the absence becomes "a kind of mourning you survive by trying not to think about it too much." The truth is, nothing can be done. It’s not about motivation or focus. Criticism is useless. Better to support them.
After the match, Allegri said Gimenez wasted his chances because he arrived "not lucid," drained from working too much for the team. In other words, he did all the extra things coaches want from a striker, on top of scoring. It recalls Zlatan Ibrahimovic at Ajax, when he listened to Van Basten’s advice and refused to defend as Van Gaal demanded, so as not to lose sharpness in front of goal.
You could almost see Gimenez’s thoughts colliding with each other. And it’s true he began the match with different energy. After ten minutes he carried the ball into the box, bravely cutting between Ferguson and Lykogiannis, shifted onto his left and shot quickly. Not powerful but precise enough to force a fine save from Skorupski, who pushed it wide for a corner. On his own, Gimenez had rattled Bologna’s defense, and San Siro roared. He raised his hands to pump up the crowd.
From rousing leader to unfortunate boy needing consolation as he walked off. The first doubts (if doubts they were) or those intrusive thoughts Americans talk about, perhaps crept in around the 59th minute. Youssouf Fofana carried the ball to the edge of the box and slipped it to him on the left. He wasn’t clean through, not close either, but had all the time he wanted to line up a shot. Too much time? Maybe. He took one step too many and scuffed a weak effort, from too tight an angle to trouble Skorupski even if it had been on target.
Modric’s goal should have lifted some weight off him, yet instead he first missed the chance described earlier, then the worst one of all. Christian Pulisic's through ball set him free, more or less central, alone against Skorupski, with no defender near. Skorupski had advanced halfway but wasn’t rushing him.
It was better than a penalty in open play. Gimenez could have carried it further, picked his spot calmly. Near post, low or high. Or across goal, if he wanted to make it harder, if he wanted a spectacular finish.
What Gimenez chose to do instead made no sense. He feinted a shot, shifted the ball left. Tried to dribble past a keeper still five meters away. One touch closed the angle a little, another carried the ball wider, until the gap left to shoot through was as narrow as possible, the goal practically gone. Sure enough, he hit the near post.
He struck while falling, then grabbed at his toes as if cramping. His eyes were empty. Behind his blue eyes, nothing. Even the intrusive voice that had urged him to round the keeper, “go on, beat him, like the old-school strikers, like Ronaldo!”, had vanished, leaving him alone. This mistake was too big to blame on luck. He had brought it on himself.
Three minutes later coach Massimiliano Allegri pulled him. He tapped Gimenez on the chest to console him, maybe also to check his heart was still beating. Nkunku, who replaced him, showed a different agility and feel for the box, even in the move that earned a penalty later annulled by VAR, which also saw Allegri sent off. In contrast with Gimenez’s clumsiness, Nkunku looked like Spiderman.
Santiago Gimeenz, a striker who doesn't score is like a superhero stripped of his powers...
If it’s not technical or tactical, if it doesn’t depend entirely on him, then it feels like magic. The ability to score that comes and goes like a divine whim, producing fatalism. The same fatalism with which Gimenez accepted his errors, and Allegri excused them.
There is nothing more tragic than a striker who seems to miss chances on purpose. And nothing that sparks more empathy from fans, ordinary people who in their own lives miss countless chances too, almost as if by choice, even if unaware of it.
In that sense Gimenez is one of us. In that sense we understand his misfortune. We too think it’s never our fault. We curse the posts we hit, the goalkeepers we fail to beat, the goal, in English, also "goal" as in objective, always too small, always too far away.
And if we accept that in ourselves, if we make peace with it, why shouldn't Santiago Gimenez do the same?
