Santiago Gimenez's Journey: From Feyenoord Star to Milan's Challenge

Santiago Gimenez arrived at San Siro with numbers that usually bend transfer meetings in an instant. Sixty-five goals in 105 games for Feyenoord. More than 20 in each of his two full seasons at De Kuip. A classic penalty-box striker with a left foot that terrorised Eredivisie defences.

He had options. Big ones. Clubs across Europe circled, Premier League sides among them, but the Mexican forward turned his back on England and followed his heart. Milan called, and the boyhood Rossoneri fan chose the club he had grown up watching on television.

The script looked perfect. The reality has been anything but.

From Rotterdam rhythm to Milan frustration

Gimenez’s first months in Italy produced six goals, enough to hint at something promising but not nearly enough to silence doubts. He never quite looked at ease. The movements were there, the work rate too, yet the sharpness that defined his Feyenoord spell rarely surfaced.

That was initially framed as an adjustment period. New league, new country, new pressure. A step outside his comfort zone. Time, people said, would take care of the rest.

Then came the injuries.

His first full season in Serie A turned into a stop-start ordeal. Five months lost to fitness problems stripped away rhythm, confidence, and any chance of building a case for a permanent starting role. By the end of the campaign, his output had shrunk to a single Coppa Italia goal. For a striker who once scored for fun, it felt like a different sport.

At a club like Milan, such numbers invite questions. And this summer, with Massimiliano Allegri heading out and a broader reset under way, Gimenez’s name has inevitably drifted into the conversation about who might move on.

Borgetti’s verdict: not just on the player

In Mexico, the situation has been watched closely. Jared Borgetti, the country’s second-highest all-time goalscorer, knows better than most what it means to carry the No. 9 shirt and the expectations that come with it.

“Unfortunately, the move to Italy hasn't been a good year for Santiago,” Borgetti told GOAL, speaking on behalf of 10bet. He was clear, though, that the blame does not sit solely with the striker. The injury, he said, “played a significant role in preventing him from achieving consistency, competing for a starting position, and reaching the level he showed in the Netherlands.”

Borgetti went further, casting a cold eye over Milan’s broader malaise.

“I believe Milan as a whole hasn't been performing well, and when a team isn't playing well, no player can truly stand out,” he said. To claim otherwise, in his view, would be “exaggerating or just saying it for the sake of it.”

Gimenez, in his eyes, is a player who feeds off structure and service. He needs a functioning system, a team that moves in sync and supplies chances in the box. When the collective drops, the striker who lives on fine margins drops with it.

“I do think the dip in form is partly due to him, partly due to the team,” Borgetti concluded, adding that the atmosphere around the club has inevitably seeped into the forward’s performances.

A bond with Milan that has not broken

For all the turbulence, one thing has not cracked: Gimenez’s attachment to Milan. The dream that pulled him to San Siro still matters to him.

“I have supported Milan since I was a child,” he told Billboard Italia, “so finding myself playing in that stadium that I could only see on television means a great deal to me.”

The relationship with the fans has helped. This is a demanding crowd, quick to turn when standards slip, yet Gimenez insists he has felt something different.

“The fans welcomed me with so much affection and, despite the fact I have not yet performed as I would have liked, they continue to push me and trust me. Like a family.”

That backing has bought him time and, perhaps, another season to prove that the Feyenoord version of Santiago Gimenez can exist in Serie A.

World Cup on home soil: a striker’s reset button

Before that, though, comes a stage no Milan supporter can control and no Mexican fan will ignore.

The 2026 World Cup lands on Mexican soil, and Gimenez is aiming to use it as a springboard. Wear the shirt, shoulder the pressure, and come back to Italy with his confidence rebuilt.

“When you wear the national team jersey, you represent an entire country, so you have a huge responsibility,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s a wonderful thing.”

He knows what home advantage can do in Mexico. The noise, the colour, the relentlessness of the support. “I know that Mexico, with its people, is very strong at home. I’m convinced it will be a great World Cup. Mexico will win, and I’ll be the top scorer!”

Bold? Absolutely. But this is a striker trying to speak his way back into the version of himself that terrified defences in Rotterdam.

Mexico open the tournament at the Azteca Stadium against South Africa on Thursday, with Gimenez in line to lead the attack in front of a country desperate for a deep run. South Korea and Czechia follow in Group A, matches that will test El Tri’s nerve and Gimenez’s finishing.

If he catches fire, everything changes. A prolific World Cup on home soil would send him back to Milan with momentum, sharper in mind and body, ready to attack a contract that runs until the summer of 2029.

The question now is simple and unforgiving: will San Siro see the Feyenoord finisher or the hesitant figure of this past season when he walks back through those doors after the World Cup?