Santi Giménez; tail of a lion or head of a mouse?

The transfer market in Europe is about to close, and with that, last-minute moves or panic buys—as they are often called—are in full swing.

For Mexican footballers playing in Europe, everything seems to be settled, except for Santi Giménez, who has been approached by several European football teams since the beginning of 2024.

First, it’s important to note that the Mexican’s market value is set at 40 million euros, a figure that only a few teams can afford. Based on this, the options that the Mexican’s agents initially had were significantly reduced, as the vast majority of them did not consider this amount to be ‘fair.

But it turns out that there are teams that are interested and could reach the figure; one of them is Nottingham Forest from the Premier League. A ‘modest’ team, considering we’re talking about the best league in the world. But the reality is that this club will have one sole objective this season: to avoid relegation. For Nottingham, there are no championships, no Champions League, no European tournaments, nor anything else to motivate them beyond staying in the Premier League (which itself represents the difficulty of facing the best teams in the world week after week).

Today, Santi plays in the Eredivisie, a league that is not among the top 5 in Europe, and he plays for Feyenoord, a team that consistently competes for the league title, cup titles, and qualifies for Champions League spots season after season. This season, for example, they will be competing in the group stage of the best club tournament.

And here lies the debate in which Santi Giménez finds himself. On one hand, the best league in the world is knocking on your door. The most competitive. The one with the best resources. And the one that represents the highest quality. But, on the other hand, this option limits you to few goal-scoring opportunities day-to-day, making it incredibly challenging for a striker to shine.

Personally, I am one of those who believes that some opportunities only come around once and should not be missed. The case of Raúl Jiménez can serve as a very good example, as his situation was very similar to what ‘El Bebote’ is experiencing today.

Raúl was playing for Benfica in Portugal and had the option to move to England to wear the Wolverhampton jersey. Once again, we’re talking about a low-profile team, newly promoted at the time, and offering little assurance of staying in the top division. In this case, Raúl decided to accept the challenge because he wasn’t finding the desired success at Benfica either, and the gamble paid off immensely, as he became a historic striker for the club. Moreover, the Wolves had extraordinary seasons, even reaching European spots and remaining in the Premier League to this day.

Nothing guaranteed Raúl that this move would be successful, but he had the courage, and of course, the luck for it to work in his favor.

It’s possible that Santi is thinking the exact same thing I’m writing about here. What if it goes well for me? What if from there, the jump to an even bigger stage globally becomes easier? What if I excel in the Premier League? Any other team might become interested and pay whatever is asked for me.

But while considering these kinds of scenarios, he might also be thinking about the negative ones. What if it goes really badly? What if the team just doesn’t compete and we end up relegated? What if the few goal-scoring opportunities affect my tally, and I start becoming less and less productive?

Well, we could call this a ‘blessed’ problem, because there are very, very few Mexican footballers who face such a scenario.

There are eight days left until the transfer window closes, and while anything can happen, it seems that today Giménez has only two options: join a low-profile Premier League team or stay one more season at Feyenoord, where he is loved, a starter, a top scorer, and where he will very likely be fighting for the title.

There is little time, and the only clear thing is that Santi is not convinced about making this move, and while some might see it as settling, what I interpret is that he believes one more season in the Netherlands at a very high level will once again put him on the radar of many teams, and maybe in the next market, a more prominent team might go for him and pay what’s being asked.

For now, we can only hope that both Santi and his camp make the best decision for him, which could also benefit the Mexican national team.

What would you do? Head of a mouse or tail of a lion?

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