Santiago Gimenez was unable to make any minutes during Feyenoord’s away match win against Go Ahead Eagles. The Mexican was supposed to start in the starting line-up, but his calf hurt too much during the warm-up and therefore had to sit on the bench. Trainer Arne Slot explains during the press moment how his injury occurred.
“On Sunday in the cup final he received a tap on his calf,” the Feyenoord coach responds. ”He was already suffering from that at halftime. We didn’t train on Monday, we didn’t train on Tuesday and we did for the first time on Wednesday. He was able to participate in that training, but you can imagine that it was a quiet training. Today in the warm-up he had to take off because he was suffering too much from that tap on his calf.”
Trauner and Bijlow
Slot chose Ayase Ueda at the point of attack. The Japanese was not the only change. Gernot Trauner and Justin Bijlow were given playing time with a view to the European Championship. Will the defender and goalkeeper also remain standing? ”It would be strange if I were to announce the line-up for the remaining three matches now. We made this choice, but it was not easy. Timon has done a great job and Nieuwkoop is also doing very well. That has also proven to be a very good purchase for us. If you don’t draft guys like that, it’s difficult.”
”At the same time, Justin and Gernot have meant a lot to Feyenoord and indirectly to me. If you can help them by setting them up. It should not be seen entirely as a favor either. Those guys are seriously good too. I thought they both played excellently, just like the entire team played excellently. Apparently it’s nice to join a team that has so many automatisms. I thought Gernot was good, but the person standing next to him (Beelen, ed) also played a very good match.”
