Take, for instance, the case of striker Gimenez, where Slot was prepared to take a medium-term view after he arrived from Mexico.
When Feyenoord look at possible signings, they not only have their scouts observe the player, but the club’s performance and medical departments, too. Sometimes, the football staff will flag limiting factors that should be improved by the performance team (strength or speed, for example) and on other occasions, as was the case with Gimenez, the observations can come from the performance end. For Gimenez, they analysed his running style and noted he needed more “control around his trunk and pelvis” to avoid injuries and physically compete at the highest level. The observations are based on screenings of a player’s movement patterns, in-game and on the training field.
Vandenbroucke said: “We came to a conclusion that we needed a few months to get him (Gimenez) up and running. Arne agreed and he is the only manager I’ve ever worked with who would do that. It meant accepting we cannot play him from the start of the game because we needed the time to put more into him to get the output in the later stage of the season.”
Gimenez therefore started only five games in his 2022-23 debut season before club football paused in the November for the World Cup held in Qatar during the northern hemisphere’s winter. The plan went so smoothly that, after the tournament, he started 20 of Feyenoord’s final 21 Eredivisie and Europa League matches, scoring in 12 of them and finishing as their 20-goal top scorer.
Anketa