Santiago Gimenez has lifted the lid on what his recovery from surgery was like, having just made his return to the field.
Gimenez returned to the field against Torino after almost five months out (his last appearance was at the end of October). Having battled through pain for a while, he made the decision to undergo an operation to fix a niggling issue in his ankle.
Having made his comeback at the weekend, the Mexican forward is hoping for a strong end to the campaign, in order to prove to the management that he deserves to stay beyond the summer, and to go into a home World Cup in the best possible form.
‘The best choice’
In an exclusive interview with TUDN (via MilanNews), Gimenez recounted the process that led him to the final decision to undergo ankle surgery, describing his state of mind during that period.
“The discomfort had been with me since before the Gold Cup; as a player, you say it’s nothing, that you have to keep going, but after each match the pain began to get worse and worse, until it reached a point where it was really bad,” he said.
“I was a starter for AC Milan, my expectations were very high, and that’s when you start to doubt whether to stop or continue. I decided to keep going, I took medicine to play, until I reached a point where I couldn’t keep going, not even run, it hurt so much.
“In that match against Atalanta, I took double the dose, and then I decided to stop, and after tests and X-rays, the decision was to have surgery.
“You have the World Cup in the summer, you weigh all the possible possibilities, the decision I made was to have surgery, together with my family, and it was the best choice.”
Read SempreMilan ad-free and get access to exclusive news. Click here for a free trial!
I’ve been saying it forever: ankle injuries limit first touch ability, turning and shooting, and shooting accuracy, obviously. Those are exactly Santi’s perceived shortcomings in his bad stretch with no goals. He is a talented player who scored numerous goals for Feyenoord and the Mexican National Team. At his young age, still in his prime, he couldn’t have simply and suddenly unlearned how to score goals.
All the outcries that he was bad and didn’t deserve to be a Milan player, not only by a large segment of the fan base, but even by Tare, were exaggerated and disregarded his clinical situation.
What happens is that obviously the AC Milan doctors are very incompetent and keep misdiagnosing and mistreating players’ injuries. Santi only got his situation solved when he saw a Dutch doctor, and now Rafa is also fed up that the AC Milan docs can’t get rid of his chronic pelvic inflammation that limits his speed, and today has traveled abroad to see a foreign doctor.
I hope that both Santi and Rafa will be productive again for AC Milan, once competent doctors help them with their chronic injuries (has happened for Santi already and now I hope it happens for Rafa).
AC Milan was statistically spotted as the European club with the largest number of injuries, and that says a lot about the incompetence of our medical department. We should fire everybody and hire a new group of competent doctors specialized in Sports Medicine.
I agree that he still has a place and can prove himself. He was decent in his first six months, and as has been revealed, he was carrying this injury since the summer, so this entire season until his return last game has been conditioned by this injury. It seems like we’re still going to get another no. 9, but we need two anyway, regardless of whether we end up using 3-5-2 or 4-3-3 next season. So I think Santi can and should be in the squad next season. It will be Santi and the other no. 9 fighting for a starting spot, and then Leao v. Pulisic (if they both remain) fighting for the other starting spot (assuming a 3-5-2).
He is a player to keep. We can not judge his performance while he was injured. At least he was courageous to have the surgery done. He is a brave man compared to Boniface and Mateta who both tried to hide their injuries.
Absolutely! You are right.
I’m sure gimenez is great player so many people give up on him earlier
He will need to stay, Nkunku needs to go, Camarda needs to return and we need someone up front who is not Retegui, if he comes in on a high salary in the shape we saw him in last night it will take months for him to get into proper shape and then get going, he looked fat and slow.